Over at the Washington Monthly, Steve Benen has published Bruce Bartlett’s response to Atrios’s question about why the media continues to treat Republicans with so much deference. To summarize, Bartlett says that Murdoch media has tilted things far to the right and that the rest of the media used to be liberal (I don’t agree with this part) but is now centrist. Also, the monotony and inevitable silliness of 24 news channels has driven serious journalists from the scene. Bartlett’s response is worth reading and it’s not wrong, but I can’t help but feel that something is missing from his explanation.
I always come back to the wide chasm between local media and national media. I know a lot of local reporters and, in general, I respect their work a lot. They genuinely enjoy afflicting the comfortable and, to the extent that I’m able to judge, their work is fair and accurate. Mind you, it’s not so hard to get into afflicting the comfortable when the comfortable is some local politician or businessman who will never invite you over for quail or hook you up with wingnut welfare. And therein lies one of the key differences between national and local media: local bigwigs are seen (rightly) as losers and crooks whereas national bigwigs are seen partly as potential cash cows and career makers. The national media got used to sucking up to national Republican bigwigs when they were in power and it will take some time for them to realize that, unless you want a gig at his non-profit, there’s really no point in kissing Newt Gingrich’s ass.
But there’s another big difference, too, and I think in some ways this may be the key. On local issues, everyone is on more or less the same page. People want stuff to work and they don’t want to pay too much tax money for it. There are no Galtians on garbage trucks. Arguments tend more towards “this plan for a bus station sucks because it’s in the wrong part of downtown” and less towards “only Karl Marx would build a bus station at all”. In this environment, it’s not so difficult to do reporting that everyone regards as down-the-middle. People want their trash picked up on time, you report on if their trash is getting picked up on time. People want the crime rate to be low, you report on the crime rate. And so on. I’m making this sound simpler than it really is, but there is a general consensus that reality is important and that when your reporting accurately reflects discernible reality, you’re not exhibiting bias.
The dogmatism and ideologically-driven reasoning of national Republicans is disorienting. You can’t discuss the cost and effectiveness of a proposal, because maybe to a Republican the whole proposal is communist, or death-panel-promoting, or somehow constitutes negotiating with terrorists, so by discussing the proposal from a reality-based perspective, you are, in the eyes of Republicans, betraying your liberal bias.
I think that’s really what it comes down to. At the national level, any discourse that involves figures facts, figures, and other references to discernible reality is by definition liberal discourse. So to avoid being called liberal, it is necessary to give equal weight to right-wing fantasies about death panels and super terrorists.
DougJ +2
cervantes
It is simply not true that the media used to have a liberal bias. The corporate media used to be somewhat more based in reality than it is today, and reality has a liberal bias. In order to be a conservative, you have to believe a whole lot of things that aren’t true. It used to be more difficult to get away with falsehood than it is today, and that was perceived as a “liberal bias” by people who confuse “balance” with truth.
Nowadays, bullshit and lies are given equal credence with truth. That creates “balance” which favors conservatives. Basically, the most ruthless and outrageous liar wins when there is no distinction between truth and falsehood.
When truth has an advantage, conservativsm is impossible.
Comrade Jake
I think your entire post can be distilled to: national media figures make way too much money, and have done so by sucking up to Republicans.
DougJ
I think your entire post can be distilled to: national media figures make way too much money, and have done so by sucking up to Republicans.
Maybe. But I also think the crazy Republican ideological stuff plays a role.
General Winfield Stuck
I’ll have what Dougj is having. Spot on. Or thumbs up, or whatever.
Neurovore
I have heard that Obama is leaning towards simply caving in to the Republican minority over the public option and is thinking of scrapping the idea altogether in the spirit of “compromise”. He gave Republicans NUMEROUS chances to behave like adults and contribute in a meaningful way to the lawmaking process, but they still refused to cooperate. I honestly do not understand why the Democratic party feels that it can have a rational discussion with the same people who keep trying to raise Ronald Reagan back from the dead. The Democrats have congressional a majority, why do they not USE it to their advantage? I realize that it would piss off the Republican party, but the Republican party has already demonstrated that it will go batshit insane no matter what the Democrats do, so it is not like you would have anything to lose. Are the DINOs and Blue Dogs in the Democratic party, really that strong?
guster
Neurovore:
Obama actually _believes_ the nonsense he spouts about bipartisanship. If he took a date to dinner, and she wanted tire rims and he wanted pasta, he’d finish his whole plate of copper tubing, in the name of compromise, and like it.
General Winfield Stuck
Republicans have a perpetual siege mentality, especially when they are out of power, that makes them come together with a crazy glue of singularity of purpose. Maybe they sense it’s the only way to power in a country, that issue to issue the majority doesn’t agree with them. And when they find the right narrative which is always anchored in Lieberals are weak, gluttonous, immoral, and will get you starved or killed, or sent to hell, then they are even more formidable.
The big difference now is the Murdoch media empire that is willing to wave the bloody rag and synthesize the crazy into mainstream news, where they and the flocking faithful can shake the ratings tree and scare the at least somewhat conscientious remaining media into mimicry. Then we get what we currently have. Untruth and consequences in a race to the information bottom.
Ash Can
I said it before, and I’ll say it again. News outlets in the US are like the beer-brewing industry in this country. Decades ago, there were lots of breweries — small (virtually municipal), regional, and a few national. Consolidation happened, and a small number of national brands forced innumerable small brewers out of business and consolidated a bunch of the regional names, bestowing upon them uniform brewing recipes and far lower quality. In the wake of this, however, micro-sized operations popped up and assumed the mantle of top-shelf quality. Over the recent years, a few have stayed in business, a few haven’t, and a few more have gone on to regional and super-regional, if not national, success. None of those higher-quality outfits have knocked Miller or Budweiser out of their market-dominant positions, but they’re not going away either, if only for the fact that they offer an alternative that’s so far and away superior.
Neurovore
I am sorry…I am only a young man, so maybe I have a lot to learn. However, the Republican party does not hesitate to force everybody in line with their governing ideology and make sure that everybody marches lockstep under the same ideological banner unless they want to fail the Republican litmus test. But, the Democratic party seems less like a party than a sort of loose coalition that can barely keep itself together whenever it has to make a decision on anything. Whenever they are backed into a corner by the Republican party, they fall all over themselves to aid and abet the party of Sarah Palin and Rush Limbaugh while decrying their misdeeds all the while.
I am not saying that the Democratic party should force everybody to hold to a rigid party line like the Republicans do, but I am sick of the days between having to choose between Republican and Republican Lite.
Comrade Jake
@Neurovore:
The problem are Democratic Senators who are owned by the health insurance companies or scared of their own shadows, not Obama being bi-partisan for the sake of it. Because of the way it works in the Senate these days (60 votes for anything budget-related), all it takes is one of them to prevent the PO.
If the PO doesn’t survive, it won’t be because Obama caved to the Republicans. None of the Republicans are going to vote for this bill in the end, and the WH knows that.
Derelict
The media loves the right-wing nuts because they make for good television.
Three people discussing healthcare financing and potential 20-year leveraging capacities for chronic disease overhang? Viewers will be hanging themselves by their Venetian blind chords.
One right-wing hack screaming about death panels and someone being “objectively pro Saddam?” Now we’re talking must-see TV!!!
Any wonder why the lunatics manage to take over the asylum? The people who are supposed to help keep the nuts at bay keep handing them the keys.
JK
The sloppyness and lack of professionalism of the MSM is obviously a legitimate issue for discussion and cause for concern over the next 4 years.
I’m even more troubled by the frenzied, over the top, fever pitch hate rhetoric coming from Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity, Michael Savage, Mark Levin, and Michelle Malkin. I don’t know how long these assholes can keep adding more and more gasoline to the public discourse before some lunatic makes an assassination attempt.
The Main Gauche of Mild Reason
@Neurovore:
I hate to be so blunt, but you have to be stupid to think that Democratic majority=progressive Democratic majority; Obama is compromising with other Democrats, not Republicans. All this talk about Obama “caving” presumes that a bill with a strong public option was actually a real political possibility to begin with–when RIGHT FROM THE BEGINNING conservative democrats began to object hugely to the idea of a public option. Now, personally, I’m hugely in favor of the public option, but I’m not deceived that a majority of democrats share my political views (I’d say only a sizeable majority do). Democrats MAY have a majority in congress and a supermajority in the senate, we’re far from reaching a progressive concensus in the democratic party.
Are the conservative Democrats flying in the face of actual public opinion on this issue? Yes. Are they largely motivated by the parochial interests of insurance companies in their districts? Yes. Does their motivation in any way change the reality that they’re a roadblock to this legislation? No.
General Winfield Stuck
@Neurovore:
You may be young, but you are absolutely right.
Neurovore
Sigh. I was not expecting much, but I hoped that (perhaps naively) that he would have been able to at least get SOMETHING passed. At least with a watered down bill you would have the dim chance of using that as a foundation to build upon in future legislative attempts.
Comrade Jake
@Neurovore:
Even if the PO doesn’t make it, there’s a lot in this bill that probably will. There’s a good chance some heavy regulation of the insurance industry will make it, and that’s not peanuts.
The Main Gauche of Mild Reason
I think people are right to lament that the acceptable political discourse has moved to the right in this country. But at the same time, I know that Washington has become wired for Republicans over the last 30 years (regardless of Clinton), and that it will take at least two Obama terms to get us back to the point where sampling methods for the census and single-payer healthcare are actually legitimate issues in the public discussion. The last two years are already leaps and bounds over previously–the fact that health insurance legislation and global warming are actually discussed is a huge victory. And progressives would do right to remember this, because making the perfect the enemy of the good has the potential to lose Democrats control of congress and set the whole progressive agenda back another decade.
CT
@Ash Can: Your post made me very thirsty. Wishing I could put my hands on a fine Bridgeport IPA right about now. Not on a Sunday in America’s Heartland ™, though
steve s
We’re 7 mos into the Obama presidency, and some Dems are whining and bitching and calling him a failure. Can you imagine the GOP giving up on Bush by August 2001. Of course not. The GOP has more spine, I believe. They’re wrong about most everything, but they don’t wimp out at the first setback.
The Main Gauche of Mild Reason
While Republican opposition has the potential to water down public support for Democratic proposals like healthcare reform, it’s important to realize that their all-in opposition makes the passage of ANYTHING remotely labeled “healthcare reform” a huge political loss for them. While you and I may not look at this stuff from a “scorekeeping” perspective, the media definitely does. And when the Republicans go all-in against the stimulus, and cap-and-trade, and health insurance reform, and immigration reform–and all those bills pass ANYWAY, then the media really will start to see Republican opposition as irrelevant.
cleek
so by discussing the proposal from a reality-based perspective, you are, in the eyes of Republicans, betraying your liberal bias.
i like this idea a lot.
this is a corollary to the idea that goverment doesn’t work and the GOP is here to prove it.
and for your theory to work, it means that the tier of GOP mouthpieces that the DC press interacts with is either full-on GOP ideologue, or are full-on shills for the ideologues.
the GOP knows how to play the game.
+6
Keith G
@Neurovore: It seems that some of us just have to be able to tread water until the next “go round”. These half measures will have a short shelf life. Then, some of the same ijits who have been bitching about “European solutions” (Mrs. Abram) will be bitching about their f-ed up healthcare.
As TJ noted: “Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just: that his justice cannot sleep for ever”
**Note; I posted a similar statement in a previous thread that has been in moderation for 30 min. It fit here, so I changed one thing and reposted.
Zak44
“The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.” (William Butler Yeats, ‘The Second Coming’)
Keith G
@cleek: Indeed they can play the game.
I do not buy all of what Doug typed. Simply, the GOP have been working the refs for decades. That, and they have been very effective at rewriting the rules – think Fairness Doctrine, Supeme Court, etc. Their ideas are the default, the matrix, if you will. It is gonna take more than Nov 2008’s optimism to change this.
This is the true “Long War”.
General Winfield Stuck
@The Main Gauche of Mild Reason:
The politics that comes after a bill without a PO, or a mechanism to lower costs and cover more people, is kind of mind boggling to me. There are so many forces and counter vailing forces that I don’t really know what will happen.
Yes, there is the victory of getting at least some reforms passed, but there is also the fact that it will dishearten the liberal base that votes in midterm elections like 010.
And without something to rein in the insurance companies manic profiteering, who will get blamed. I kinda think dems will from having such a large majority. Even though a chunk of senate dems were never going to vote for govment insurance. Carville said today he recommends that dems let goopers filibuster real reform in the senate, and that makes some sense on pure politics, but what about the relief of insurance delivery reforms would bring to millions of Americans? It’s a mess right now, but is still possible if 50 liberal senators band together and push it thru with Recon process. Or, we may end up with nothing if enough House liberals say no to watered down reform. Twisty plot all around.
flounder
I think the corporate entanglements of the traditional media play a major role in this stuff. I mean look at that NBC-Fox deal where they agreed not to fight. That is because GE has a lot more to lose in any pie fight than NBC, because if you start looking into corporate malfeasance in this country, be it in the financial market, defense, health care, etc.; eventually you are talking about some wing of the GE brand.
So while NBC may superficially say, hey, let’s make MSNBC the “liberal” station, they are still going to be very conservative in anything that involves GE and won’t let any sort of reporting get too deep.
The Main Gauche of Mild Reason
@General Winfield Stuck:
I’ve always thought that was relatively simple. Presuming the bill has some sort of a quasi-universal coverage mandate and reform of the negative practices (rescission, preexisting conditions refusal, etc) a number of peoples’ lives will actually get better–they will be able to get treatment for their cancer, or actually able to get insurance in the first place. The price of insurance, however, will continue to rise. And it will become increasingly obvious that with the conditions we have imposed on the marketplace (which the public will universally support–who’s goign to be in favor of preexisting conditions refusal?) that the only way to control costs is to have insurance companies compete against a non-profit option OR to have single-payer.
This presumes there won’t be some co-op proposal in the bill, which would introduce people to the idea that non-profits can be much better at controlling costs than the bloated for-profit corporations.
Neurovore
I see. I guess much of this is from the fact that I am still bitter from hard right governor Pawlenty hacking MinnesotaCare to pieces and removing eligibility from the lowest income bracket that was previously covered by the program. As a single college student at 25 without children, I would be one of the many thousand people in Minnesota that would be dropped from the program when the cuts that he made go into effect next year. He did this in the spirit of “balancing the budget” in light of the recession, but quite frankly, he was looking for an excuse to dismantle MinnesotaCare for a long time. You would think that a person of my age and lack of children would be cheaper for the state to cover than people who are below the poverty line and already have several children but I guess that Pawlenty does not see it that way. Maybe I should father a child (Joking, of course) just to remain being eligible for MinnesotaCare.
Neal
Thank you for this post, particularly the closing bits. I’ve been having this frustrating discussion with a friend of mine who insists that Obama is sending us on a road to tyranny / communism / etc. I’ve been trying to respond by pointing out what is in the bills and what is not, studies on the quality of care Americans receive versus other countries, etc.
He accuses me of spouting partisan rhetoric and not taking his opinions seriously. I’m trying to explain to him — I am taking your concerns seriously — that’s why I’m trying to engage you with data and primary sources — to show you that these fears aren’t rooted in reality. I’ve only made it worse through that poor choice of words.
Comrade Luke
There’s a major point in Bartlett’s commentary that’s been skipped over here, which I think is valid: there has been no concerted effort to combat Fox News and the Republican noise machine.
Regardless of where we are today, Fox/Murdoch are consistently moving the discourse to the right, without much opposition.
There’s a tug-of-war going on, with no one pulling on one side. Until that changes the present situation will continue, if not get worse.
Martin
I’m going to suggest that the thing that’s missing is the result of the Fairness Doctrine going away. I’m not suggesting that it was great or should necessarily even come back, but it maintained a certain balance to news that is now too easy to throw away. It wasn’t just the left/right balance, but also ensuring that local issues got coverage. In the early CNN days, they’d break for some period to provide local news from a local affiliate. That’s long gone. In its place we got opinion blended in with news. When I was a kid, the news regular ran two opinion segments at the end of the evening news – on a timely issue there were two competing op-eds maybe a minute long, max. The scarcity of op-ed time (a few minutes per day) pretty much mandated you not waste it on the diarrhea that usually comes out of the pundits today. Same with news not bothering to cover stupid consumer shit.
Honestly, I think the only solution is to deny revenues to the 24 hour networks. Moving cable to an ala carte model would do wonders. How many people would be willing to pay specifically to get CNBC, HLN, etc?
Mike in NC
You may be too young to have heard the classic joke, “I don’t belong to an organized political party; I’m a Democrat”.
I checked out the link to WizBang in a previous thread that JK had provided. Tons of batshit insanity in the comments about Perlstein’s WaPo article on the far right, i.e., “The Mulatto-in-Chief”. Really classy stuff.
General Winfield Stuck
@Neal:
It’s kind like an Invasion of the Moran Snatchers. Don’t nobody go to sleep.
Comrade Luke
@Martin: So you’re saying that instead of fighting back with our own “noise machine”, we use the courts to balance the playing field?
I’d prefer balance – to be honest, I’d prefer that the noise machines disappear completely, but good luck with that – but can you imagine the field day the right would have wrt using the courts?
srv
David Frum on Bill Moyers – almost sounds sane.
steve s
Or worse, the Sheinhardt Wig Company.
jcricket
I generally agree with Doug’s statement, except for this:
Where do you live? Because this isn’t true where I live (Seattle). What used to be a home to moderate Republicans has now become as polarized (see Rossi v. Gregoire, round 1 or 2) as national politics. The comment section at the Seattle Times is a cesspool of wingnuts railing against unions, public works, the government, teachers, etc. whenever there’s an article pointing out something less than perfect about one of those groups.
The majority of the blame lies with Republicans, who have utterly poisoned discourse for 40 years, and who couldn’t cobble together a single good policy idea if a pack of rabid badgers were dropped into RNC headquarters the doors were locked and a good policy was the only key. If Republicans were not such mendacious, evil, vindictive pricks, none of this shit would be happening (look at other countries were political discourse is still rancorous, but the “conservative” party isn’t so fucking nuts)
Some of the blame lies with the media, for doing such a shitty job. It’s like the refs in the NBA/NFL letting themselves “get worked” because the hometown crowd complains all the time. Losers.
But a significant amount of the blame lies with Democrats. We almost never articulate an affirmative case for our beliefs, and quite often nibble around the edges of the existing Republican frame. Time and again we cave when we should stand strong. I don’t think we should become Republicans, or ape their tactics per se, but a little fortitude and forcefulness could go a long way – esp. considering the facts and public are actually on our side at the issue level.
steve s
@srv:
David Frum is not a total moron. He belongs in the Independent category, in my personal inventory.
I usually don’t agree with him, but it’s like this–
Question: “Two plus two equals what?”
Democrat: “Well, I think it’s four, but we could compromise a bit.”
Independent: “Somewhere between three and, say, six.”
Republican: “Teriyaki Pancake! Prescription strength maple syrup! Karl Marx! U-S-A! U-S-A!”
Chad N Freude
Far fewer than would pay for Fox.
kuvasz
Nope, the Right is better at positioning the fight on their choice of battlefield. It is the fundamental flaw that Progressives exhibit.
The Right recognize and are well aware that cold hard facts undermine many of their positions and they refuse to expose their weakness by a rational, measured discussion of the facts.
You can’t argue about the debits and receipts of society with those who demand that 1 + 1 = 3. All you can do is hammer them as fools or liars.
Anne Laurie
DougJ, thanks for posting so many thoughtful & thought-provoking essays, especially this weekend.
It’s possible to over-romanticize the pragmatism of local rightwingers, Libertarians as well as Republicans, if you grant there’s a difference between the two. There are plenty of Katy Abrams writing to my local paper (and I live in the People’s Republic of Taxachusetts) simultaneously complaining that spending “their” tax money on education is “just like what happens in Russia” and whining that their own personal kids’ school is overcrowded & not offering enough enrichment programs. Or that there is “too much waste” in the municipal budget, but the potholes on their own street are a disgrace, also. Pointing out that enrichment programs and pothole repair are going to cost money, and that such money will not be donated by the ATM Fairy, only makes them puff up and scream about their rights which are being suppressed, eleventy-one! I have actually heard, and read, people using some variant of “I know what I know, and you can’t confuse me with your facts!”
Basically, a certain percentage of the American voting-eligible public has been encouraged to behave like spoilt five-year-olds… they want what they want, and they want it now, and any attempts to “reason” with them are rejected as partisan. It’s the All-American Consumer Culture(tm) writ large — super-sized, even! When you combine this with Consolidated Media’s attempts to turn everything into a ratings-friendly “sport competition”, there is very little incentive for Joe and Katy Twelvepack to act like citizens instead of spectators.
Chad N Freude
@jcricket:
That’s because the rightness of our positions is so blindingly obvious there is no need to make a case. And we really like facts (except when they may have nuances that don’t quite fit our position), so we can’t understand the irrationality of the opposition and don’t know how to deal with it.
Anne Laurie
@guster:
Okay, I laughed. And then groaned. Of course there’s the argument that Obama got elected, against all “conventional wisdom”, because he is that guy. On the other hand, couldn’t he do a little more to suggest that there are tasty alternatives to tire rims and broken glass, some of which don’t even require spending the rest of the evening at the emergency room?
steve s
My mom’s a school teacher. I used to get dragged to school board meetings when I was a kid. It is not true that local right-wingers are rational but the national ones aren’t. That said, I’m not saying DougJ is wholly wrong, much of what he says is true. But anybody who’s dealt with creationism, sex ed, etc, knows the locals can be Full Retards as good as anyone. But I think Doug’s right that the local right wing organizations are much more about rational local business concerns, and less about the social stuff. And I think that’s because developers and bankers and such are very rich and influential on a local scale.
steve s
LOL. To get a Tropic Thunder hit, I just searched YouTube for “Full Retard”, and the second result was something titled “Sarah Palin Goes Full Retard.”
hahahahahahaa.
Chad N Freude
@steve s:
Like in Dover, Delware? I suppose there is a focus on local issues, but that includes local social issues.
Chad N Freude
Delaware. I was not hired for my typing skills.
The Main Gauche of Mild Reason
@Anne Laurie:
To build on your analogy–spectators don’t actually participate in the game. Fortunately, a lot of these people that hold the extreme spoiled viewpoint don’t actually vote–they have as much problem with Republicans (surrendering to communist Democrats!!!) as they do with Democrats. I think that’s one challenge to Republicans “channeling” the teabagger activism for political purposes–eventually it’s going to turn on them, most likely on something like immigration reform.
Violet
I keep wondering why people aren’t holding up signs and protesting Medicare. It’s socialism, after all. Why aren’t there groups out there protesting it?
Of course the rightwing nutjobs won’t do it, because no one dares consider taking away Medicare. Just see John Culberson’s deer-in-the-headlights look when hammered on it by Lawrence O’Donnell. But a progressive group could sure organize it. It’s a legitimate question – if people don’t want socialism, why are they supporting Medicare?
Enough people screaming about taking away Medicare might get some airplay. At least it would change the discussion. Everyone would decry it, but they’d have to explain why Medicare wasn’t socialism, when it so clearly is.
Anne Laurie
@General Winfield Stuck:
Truly, Murdoch Media is the rabid ferret down the pants of our collective public discourse. I keep wondering what will happen when the miserable old monster dies, or finally decides to cut his losses (at least for public consumption, his “news” divisions are all money drains), or has control of the Evil Empire wrested away by his grown kids or his latest wife. Will Roger Ailes and his band of jesters find equally indulgent sugar daddies from the Republican Golden Triangle? Has the idea of “reporting” as just another freak show become so entrenched that the Overton Window will never return to the true center? Or will the Limbaughs, Becks, and Hannitys be reduced to the sort of pathetic death spirals that Joe McCarthy and Roy Cohn suffered?
Violet
Dang it, I got moderated. Okay, comment without the offending words:
I keep wondering why people aren’t holding up signs and protesting Medicare. It’s so ci al ism, after all. Why aren’t there groups out there protesting it?
Of course the rightwing nutjobs won’t do it, because no one dares consider taking away Medicare. Just see John Culberson’s deer-in-the-headlights look when hammered on it by Lawrence O’Donnell. But a progressive group could sure organize it. It’s a legitimate question – if people don’t want s0c1al1$m, why are they supporting Medicare?
Enough people screaming about taking away Medicare might get some airplay. At least it would change the discussion. Everyone would decry it, but they’d have to explain why Medicare wasn’t soc-ia-li-sm, when it so clearly is.
Indylib
@Anne Laurie:
I really believe a lot of this attitude comes from people hearing what they want to hear. They hear Dems say they want to make the schools better, fill the potholes, and give everyone healthcare. Then they hear Repugs insist that we can have a wonderful life here in ‘Merika with small government and low taxes. They’ve smooshed the messages together in their minds and what they come out with is “I want good schools, good roads, affordable healthcare and I want it delivered by a small government that barely taxes me.”
I’ve had to explain what the hell both parties stand for to people I know who pay no attention to politics and because they pay no damned attention, they don’t have the sense to realize that they can’t have what the Democrats promise if they insist on supporting Republican tax policies (which most of them are too unaware to realize are pro-business, not pro-middle class) and deregulation.
jcricket
@Chad N Freude:
Right, we’re too “goody goody” for our own good. I’m not suggesting we become like them, because we don’t need to be. The facts are on our side. Demography is on our side. Hell, the people are already on our side.
But we can’t even bring ourselves to call people like Palin, Gingrich and Limbaugh liars, let alone blowhards. Or when we do, we back down a week later b/c someone is threatening to be mean to us.
We suck.
Chad N Freude
@Violet:
On Meet The Press today, Dick Armey held forth on his resentment of being FORCED to be on Medicare even though he didn’t want it. Apparently there are some people who resent Medicare.
Anne Laurie
I’d bet a store-bought cookie that Katy Abram has never voted in her life, not even last November, unless her local tv news channel had a van stationed outside her personal polling station for the Big Event. In fact, I’d bet a second cookie that Mrs. Abram couldn’t find her local polling station. That’s part of the tragedy of our current American commons — too often the people who vote, don’t bitch in public, and the people who bitch in public get more attention than they deserve even though they *don’t* vote.
kay
@Violet:
That’s the sad part. Medicare really does need reform. Medicare Advantage is a flat-out rip-off for taxpayers. We’ve handed 25% of the Medicare market to for-profit insurers and it’s costing us 15% MORE than the public plan version of Medicare.
That is the most controversial provision in the House, ending Medicare Advantage, because it’s wildly profitable and it’s guaranteed government money. The House bill ends that gravy train. THAT’S what the screeching is about.
Forget the nonsense about “death panels”. What the insurance industry are terrified of losing is the Medicare cash cow they seized in the 1990’s. 25% of the Medicare market is huge.
Medicare itself won’t survive without reform. The private entities are bleeding it dry.
Republicans are killing Medicare. They’re just doing it slowly.
Chad N Freude
@jcricket:
steve s
Like in Dover, Delware? I suppose there is a focus on local issues, but that includes local social issues.
Dover, Pennsylvania, you mean. Dover is tiny. Tiny. The Dover policy was driven by a very small number of wingnuts like Bill Buckingham who happened to get elected to the school board. (We can talk about Dover all night. It’s one of the very few things I know a lot about. I spent years following that case and the fallout. Have you read Judge Jones’s 130 page decision delivered in Early December 2005? I have. Are you aware the Intelligent Design Journal PCID folded that very month? I am.) Still, what you’re saying and what I’m saying aren’t in conflict.
steve s
hmm. something went wrong in the formatting. lemme try that again:
Dover, Pennsylvania, you mean. Dover is tiny. Tiny. The Dover policy was driven by a very small number of wingnuts like Bill Buckingham who happened to get elected to the school board. (We can talk about Dover all night. It’s one of the very few things I know a lot about. I spent years following that case and the fallout. Have you read Judge Jones’s 130 page decision delivered in Early December 2005? I have. Are you aware the Intelligent Design Journal PCID folded that very month? I am.) Still, what you’re saying and what I’m saying aren’t in conflict.
Violet
@Chad N Freude:
What are the pros and cons of all seniors being required to be on Medicare? Seems sort of reasonable that if someone doesn’t want to be on it, they shouldn’t have to be. Is it a matter of getting healthier seniors into the risk pool or something?
@kay:
It’s definitely in a sad state. But the thing I don’t get is why the left isn’t co-opting the right’s anti-s0-cia-li$m rhetoric and outflanking them from the right. If it’s so horrible to have the government pay for people’s health insurance, why does anyone have it? Take away Medicare! It’s the only right thing to do. Send those seniors out on the open market. The market solves all problems! If it’s good enough for younger folks, it’s good enough for seniors! Down with Medicare!
^^ We need more of that to get the TV cameras’ attention and get someone to ask questions about why Medicare is okay but government health care for everyone else isn’t.
Chad N Freude
@Anne Laurie:
Maybe, but it’s also possible that she did vote, either because her husband, who handles all that stuff, told her to, or because the Palin-and-her-consort wind machine scared her into it (or both).
Martin
@Comrade Luke:
Well, moving cable to ala carte isn’t using the courts, but rather the marketplace. I have Fox News but Murdoch didn’t convince me to sign up. He convinced my cable operator to put Fox in the same tier as channels I actually care about. Change that dynamic, and cable news itself will change. That Murdoch can actually *be* my cable operator as well (with little recourse for me as a consumer) is a bit criminal, IMO.
The only legal recourse I would recommend is breaking up the market monopolies. More players, less financially connected will make for a more diverse marketplace. Capitalism, and all that.
@Chad N Freude:
I realize fewer than would pay for Fox, but losing those other networks would force those standing (excepting Fox, perhaps, who seems to live in an economics-free universe) to change their approach to the marketplace. My guess is that at least 50% of cable consumers would drop *all* of the 24 hour news networks, possibly as many as 80%. That would force the networks to change their approach. It might make it worse, I’m not sure, but they’d actually have to work for viewers.
steve s
btw, if you’ve never read court transcripts, the Kitzmiller vs. Dover transcripts are online, and they’re fascinating. Years ago I told Eric Rothschild, ACLU lawyer for the plaintiffs, that what he did to Michael Behe was roughly equivalent to how Bruce Lee used to punch a guy through the stomach and his fist would be sticking out the back. It was a sight to behold.
steve s
(in the movies, of course)
steve s
Retirees have a lot of time to watch tv, and Fox News has a built-in advantage because of that. But we don’t necessarily have to counter that. We have to get our message out. We shouldn’t make the mistake of thinking TV parity is the goal.
Chad N Freude
@steve s:
I am humiliated and will commit seppuku as soon as I finish typing this.
Obviously, you’re better informed about the case than I am — my knowledge is limited to reports like the one in Harper’s (I think) by the guy who later wrote the book about the case.
That’s gratifying (really, no snark). I guess I won’t do the seppuku thing after all. I do think that the local interests of the crazy persons transcend business issues and include all aspects of human belief and behavior.
Chad N Freude
@Martin:
I saw an interview with Murdoch’s biographer in which he said that if a leftward bias would bring in money, Fox would change its position in less than a heartbeat. Or words to that effect.
The Main Gauche of Mild Reason
Which is bullshit, BTW. The guy’s, what, 69? No sane insurance policy would insure someone 5 years off from our current life expectancy at less than exorbitant rates…
kay
@Violet:
Beats the hell out of me, Violet. I’d like to say it’s Obama’s compromising nature, or orders from his White House, but it was the same during the Clinton White House.
Congressional Democrats just don’t sell anything they draft. They put it out, and then they all run and hide, and we all bitch about the media (legit bitch, in my opinion,but still).
I completely miss Debbie Wasserman-Schultz. For God’s sake. She’s the only one in the House who knows how to talk. There was one, and she got sick?
Wasserman-Schultz and Kennedy. Democrats are like “well, the two spokespeople called in sick, so that’s over, we’re screwed”.
There are hundreds of them. Where are they?
Violet
@The Main Gauche of Mild Reason:
Congresspeople could get insurance companies to give them coverage, no matter how old they were. And then they’d wonder why regular people had problems getting coverage.
The Main Gauche of Mild Reason
@kay: It’s the culture of the legislature. They believe that the only thing that matters is opinion within the village, so why would they bother selling it outside?
Chad N Freude
@The Main Gauche of Mild Reason: People who have employer insurance plans do not have to go on Medicare until they retire. What I don’t know about Armey’s situation is whether he can get insurance through an employer, and I don’t know if you can leave or suspend Medicare if you take employment once you’re on it.
General Winfield Stuck
@Anne Laurie:
This thought occurred to me as I was writing my comment. My hunch is the news, or lies and felicitations of the RWNM, will sputter on under someones elses thumb. But it will lose it’s mojo when the old man goes. Say what you will about Rupert and the rot he has orchestrated in our political discourse, he is a manipulative evil genius of sorts. I can’t help thinking though if Ted Turner hadn’t cashed out, they would have been a pair of offsetting forces in the news biz, and some balance would have been maintained. As it is, I can’t help think the whole wingnut wurlitzer will diminish fairly rapidly when Murdock is gone. The one son that could’ve carried it on, has bowed out and returned to normal living, for rich people, in Australia and shows no inclination of Crocodilian instincts of the old man.
I think the whole shabang is built mostly on his moxy and ruthlessness, which is what it takes to keep a big lie alive.
Comrade Luke
If the current insurance situation is so great why don’t we make our congressmen get rid of what they have and buy into it like the rest of us.
Granted, most of them are rich so it probably wouldn’t matter that much, but still.
b-psycho
@The Main Gauche of Mild Reason: That’s for him to deal with…
I saw that MTP earlier. At one point he said something about a previous time allowing co-ops was offered. I think it was along the lines of “that time the Democrats rejected it! WTF, now some want it?”. I tried looking that up, but all I’m getting is news stories about the current proposal, nothing about what he was referring to.
Martin
@Chad N Freude:
Bullshit. The NY Post has never made money since he bought yet he keeps it running and runs farther right all the time. If money was what he was after, he’d at least have one non-conservative media news outlet in some market somewhere. He has none.
Igor Marxomarxovich
Old Russian saying…You can tell same lie 1000 time but not change truth!
Difference between USSR Communist media and USA “mainstream media”
In Russia government make media say what they want – even if lie.
In USA “mainstream media” try make government what they want – even if lie..
…..eventually they become same thing?!
I Igor produce Obama Birth Certificate at http://www.igormaro.org
Carl Nyberg
DougJ, I think your take on local media betrays that you haven’t been involved in many local fights that have taken place in the local media.
Local media gets it wrong too. The game is stacked in favor of the people in power at the local level too.
The mechanics are in some ways similar and some ways different.
What happened in the past is that the federal government and the national media used to be more neutral on Dem-GOP political questions. The norms of the people in those circles were that the government and the national media were supposed to play by the rules and be better than the hacks at the local level.
Part of the Right Wing attack on the federal government is that they have made it less credible by making it more partisan.
Anne Laurie
Ghod save the mark, but I actually know one hardcore Libertarian who ran for local office because her husband told her to. (She lost, of course. Badly.) That woman is now spamming her long-term acquaintances with hysterical (and, yes, I know the derivation of that word) crap about The Evil Obama Government trying to force us poor innocents to “turn in” our neighbors and family members for “saying bad things about Obama’s proposed s******** health plan” ! ! ! eleventy-one ! ! !
Wile E. Quixote
@DougJ
This is the best description of the differences between local media coverage, which is often incredibly substantive, and national media coverage which is anything but.
In the Seattle area there is a huge debate about how to handle future transportation needs. There’s a left wing crowd that wants to build more white rail systems because while Seattleites are liberals they don’t like taking the bus with icky negros or the handicapped. There is a right wing crowd that thinks that the way to deal with the problem is to go all out in building new highways and parking lots, which we’d have plenty of room for if we’d just cut down all of those goddamned inconvenient trees that litter the Pacific Northwest. But even though both groups disagree, virulently, on what should be done, they agree that something should be done, that a problem exists and that it needs to be addressed by local government. No one is saying that there is no transportation problem, or that everything would be better if we sold all of our roads and other transit systems to Microsoft and Amazon because the private sector would do a better job, or that allowing the government to control transit will mean that there will be death panels set up to kill Grandma if she can no longer drive.
If you say stupid and crazy shit like that about local issues you get called on it, and that’s assuming that you’re even included in the discussion at all. But if you go to Washington, D.C. and say stupid and crazy shit about national issues and the next thing you know you’re being bank-rolled by a bunch of rich white guys and running a serious and “impartial” think-tank that comments on a wide variety of issues, and nobody will call you on your bullshit.
jcricket
For the most part, at the issue level, people are at least nominally on board with the actual Democratic agenda. Where Republicans succeed is in convincing the public that Democrats agenda is something it isn’t (see panels, death).
I’m not saying that means we get a free ride, just that we don’t need to convince people of the virtue of the ideas (like a public plan). But we do need to a better job making it clear what we do/don’t stand for, instead of letting Republicans do that for us. And worse yet, we buy into the idea there are “real Americans” who don’t stand along with us “coastal elites”.
The whole thing is crap, but it’s our own fault for letting these moralizing low-life bottom-feeders control the discourse (and don’t get me started on the media).
b-psycho
@Anne Laurie:
I wonder what else she’ll do if he tells her…
lotus
@Anne Laurie:
I’d bet a store-bought cookie that Katy Abram has never voted in her life, not even last November, …
(Browsing the Pepperidge Farm shelf as I repeat links from a few days ago.) Katy Abram voted in 2008. She’s been an organizer for Glenn Beck since December 16, 2006.
Oh, and that cocky kid in Grand Junction who was so hot to debate Obama? He also somehow neglected to mention that he’s a staffer for a far-right state senator . . .
jones
yeah right
look at the fucking stats for favorable press: Obama has gotten a free ride. That’s part of his problem now, so that kind of bites you on the ass, but don’t keep trying to sell the tripe that the media isn’t hard core leftist and in the bag for Obama: the facts don’t back you up on that. The problem for you is, the media is getting weaker and weaker, and sucking Obama’s asshole these 2 years has damaged them even more than normal events would have. Now that President Pantload is proving an incompetent boob who is hopeless trying to actually be an executive of something, both the left and the right is caving in on him and the press, his main supporters, are caught in the middle.
The left always thinks if they keep saying something, they make it so. So much for reality based, eh?
jones
For the most part, at the issue level, people are at least nominally on board with the actual Democratic agenda. Where Republicans succeed is in convincing the public that Democrats agenda is something it isn’t (see panels, death).
bullshit. No one had to “convince” anyone of anything, other than the CBO exposing Obama’s lie that any version of HC “reform” currently under consideration would save money. No one distorted that: Obama tried to rush the bill through before the lie was well-discovered, but failed. Death panels are trivia. The fact that the program would destroy the economy kind of trumps those small-potatoes details.
Live with it, you’ve failed again. If you can’t pass UHC now, you never will. And the price for your defeat is going to be extreme punishment at the polls in ’10 and maybe even worse in ’12.
Obama is actually the best thing that ever happened to the GOP, and the quickest cure for what ails it. HRC would never have made these blunders, and would have been more centrist and more successful. Her “experience” claim, you now must admit to your sorrow, was valid and true.
heh.
General Winfield Stuck
@jones:
Yadda Yadda Yadda. Wank on Jonesy.
Wile E. Quixote
So Jonesy, if Obama and the media suck so bad how is it that they kicked the living shit out of the GOP? I mean you’d think that a manly war-hero like John McCain and a piece of starburst inducing eye-candy like Sarah Palin should have handed Obama and Joe Biden their asses on a platter.
Chad N Freude
@General Winfield Stuck, @Wile E. Quixote:
Please do not feed the troll.
kay
@jones:
“The fact that the program would destroy the economy kind of trumps those small-potatoes details.”
Health care costs are going to destroy the economy, jones. Where I live, people who make 10 dollars an hour and have kids are paying 400 dollars a month towards employer-provided insurance, and they’re still paying out of pocket for ordinary care, through co-pays and deductibles.
These are people who are younger and WELL, mostly, and it’s completely non-discretionary. Unless they want to risk bankruptcy, they pay, and they have absolutely no control over the increases in premiums. None. They’re handed a bill.
There’s a reason the town hall attendees were old or disabled. They have government-provided health care. They just aren’t paying for it. The old man who was crying that his disabled son would lose under Obama? His son is on SSI disability. He’s on Medicare. They both have free health care for life.
The people who protested against a public plan for health insurance have a public plan for health insurance, and it doesn’t cost them anything. It’s not surprising they objected to changes. This is working out well for them. That doesn’t mean it’s sustainable. It’s not.
DougJ
If you say stupid and crazy shit like that about local issues you get called on it, and that’s assuming that you’re even included in the discussion at all. But if you go to Washington, D.C. and say stupid and crazy shit about national issues and the next thing you know you’re being bank-rolled by a bunch of rich white guys and running a serious and “impartial” think-tank that comments on a wide variety of issues, and nobody will call you on your bullshit.
Yup.
CalD
To paraphrase Joseph De Maistre (I finally looked him up): Perhaps every country also has the news media it deserves. There’s a reason why News Night with Aaron Brown — the last serious news show I can recall seeing on any cable channel — was canceled while a ridiculous pack blowhards rule the (cable) ratings charts. People watch them. The only way to make them go away is to ignore them.
Joshua
Undoubtedly… and by the way, that’s how it should be.
The one thing I keep bringing up to people who don’t believe health care reform should pass is that if it doesn’t pass, the same shitty system we have now will be in force for the next decade, at least. And Americans already spend $1 out of every $4 that is spent in this country on health care. And costs are going up by double digit percentages every year. This system is not sustainable. We cannot spend 110% of GDP on health care. It will collapse onto itself before long – indeed, in many, many ways it already has. People go to the ER for sniffles and most employer based plans are total shit. The ones that aren’t get worse every year. American companies are at a competitive disadvantage with the rest of the world.
So, by hook or by crook the health care system will change. I know many GOP members would rather take the shock doctrine treatment, where the system just completely and totally falls apart and they can reshape it into the corporatist system of their dreams. But, for obvious reasons, I don’t think that’s a good idea.
T. O'hara
I guess that’s one of those situations where “the rightness of our positions is so blindingly obvious there is no need to make a case,” eh? At this point I’d expect someone to drag out a pew survey, or possibly a study to show how off-base any claim of media support for Obama or general liberal media bias was. Or is this not “reality based” any more?
Do you all actually believe the mainstream media has a rightward slant? If so, what makes Fox stand out? Or doesn’t it?
T. O'hara
So the solution is to expand the unsustainable system (i.e., “medicare for everybody”)? Seriously, folks, do you not see why this is a hard sell?
General Winfield Stuck
@T. O’hara:
You make no case. You wank/ it is a form of push polling. Talk as though something is true, and maybe fool a few rubes that you have a position on anything, which you don’t. They all failed the past 8- 30 years. So you wank on. What ever doubts parts of the public have about Obama and his policies is completely divorced from them believing your policy prescriptions, because you have none. Except maybe tax cuts to cure all ills. We saw how well that worked the past 8 years.
kay
@T. O’hara:
Obama made a couple of small steps towards Medicare sustainability. Getting rid of the taxpayer subsidy for Medicare Advantage, and establishing standards for effective care. That’s where the savings came in. That’s why they were able to say they had cut 200 billion out of Medicare over 10 years, and the CBO agreed.
That’s what conservatives seized on to kill the public option.
They rallied seniors, and they did it based on the very provisions that would save money, and go towards Medicare sustainability.
The Democrat wrung savings out of Medicare. Sensing an opening, and knowing full well the political clout of senior citizens, conservatives pounced.
This was a very effective political strategy, but we’ve got a big problem. Conservatives just killed any hope of Medicare reforms. You “awakened a sleeping giant” all right. You took the segment of the population that receives unlimited government-provided health care, the elderly and disabled, and convinced them no one would ever, ever be able to cut costs, if they just yell loud enough.
General Winfield Stuck
And media coverage of Mccain/Palin was negative because there behaviour and campaign tactics were bizzare and at times downright insane.
And how far do you think you will get with death panels and Nazi comparisons to Obama in the long run? Godwin rules the debate now, which means there is no debate. thanks to you whacka doodle morons.
BC
(blushing) I am eligible for Medicare this year. I am not being FORCED to go on Medicare, but if I don’t sign up now I pay a penalty of 5% for every year after 2009 that I wait to sign up. So (hold the presses) Dick Armey is wrong about that, too. He could have waited to go on Medicare or he could have refused to go on Medicare, but his costs would have gone up either way. Armey could self-insure for his health care or he could use the Republican Health Savings Account, but there is no insurer who will take someone over 70 years old – the risk is just too great. This is a failure of the capitalist system of insurance – as you age, the cost of your health care is likely to increase, so the cost of your insurance has to increase as well. Medicare has saved seniors from this truth, so much so that they don’t recognize this truth at all. Can you imagine how our 70 to 80-year-olds would manage health care today without Medicare?
kay
@T. O’hara:
Everyone knows it’s unsustainable. The point of this whole thing was to put provisions in that would make Medicare sustainable and offer a non-profit (but revenue neutral) plan to introduce competition into what is not a competitive marketplace.
Conservatives are being wildly irresponsible. They know it, too, but the political calculus was too tempting.
There’s a reason conservatives didn’t reform Medicare in all the years they were in power. Not only didn’t reform, but VASTLY expanded it with, a prescription drug subsidy.
It’s hard to do. You just witnessed how hard.
There’s a reason the nonsense about “death panels” was so potent. It’s because everyone knows we can’t spend so much on the last year of life, and survive as a functioning country. It’s only going to go up, until it crashes, and THAT will be spectacular, like the financial system implosion was.
kay
@BC:
I respect Armey a little bit because he is at least recognizing how completely untenable the Sarah Palin position is with conservatism.
She can’t have both. She can’t demonize what are really sensible provisions to bring government-funded unlimited health care under come sort of cost control, while at the same time being a movement conservative, unless she is willing to go to the next logical step, which is ending Medicare and Medicaid. Armey is too cowardly to go all the way there, but he’s at least recognizing the obvious disconnect, for him PERSONALLY, the coward.
She isn’t. She won’t. She just yells louder.
kay
@T. O’hara:
End of life directives save Medicare money. Fact. End of life directives (and I know, because I have one) also give the patient control over what are life-extending measures that don’t add much to the quality of life, in my estimation, and keep a judge out of it.
That’s why I wrote one. I’m naturally frugal, and the thought of a feeding tube both scares and appalls me. The thought of my local probate judge writing an order regarding what he has to guess about what I might want while I’m flat on my back also scares and appalls me. What might be worse is bankrupting my whole family because I didn’t leave a directive.
Conservatives just undid twenty years of common-sense hard work on end of life directives. Most people, given the choice, refuse extraordinay care at he end of their life, and that saves money and misery.
You can’t be “for” fiscal responsibility and self-determination if you do that, and you just did.
General Winfield Stuck
@kay:
kay, T O’hara and Jones are drive by trolls and are not interested in an honest debate or any debate at all. They may well be on some kind of assignment to chunk rhetorical grenades into lib blogs for the disruptive effect. The only response they deserve is to chunk the grenade right back. That is just my opinion of course.
kay
@General Winfield Stuck:
Well, thank-you stuck. I thought Ohara was honest. My mistake.
As you know, I’m all riled up and still probably operating under the delusion that they’re interested in something other than “getting the Democrat”.
This has been difficult to watch, and I’ve now watched it twice in my adult life.
I fully expect conservatives to re-capture Congress and expand Medicare again, perhaps by forbidding end of life directives. I swear, I would not be surprised.
General Winfield Stuck
@kay:
I hear you. This issue is the top one for me and it is painful to watch it turned into lie-athon circus. My bloodpressure and anger level is getting to high and after a few comments this morn I’m going to turn the computer and teevee off for mental health reasons, at least for awhile.
kay
@General Winfield Stuck:
Good idea. It’s funny, though, how events can have unintended consequences. My husband is a former (mostly) Republican voter who quit them over Iraq and (amazingly) the 2002 farm bill, which he saw as red state bribery.
He’s cranky about spending, so was getting nervous about Obama but the health care nonsense has driven him firmly back into the Obama camp.
He’s know for a long time that Medicare needed reform, as everyone who is breathing does, and he was pleased with how aggressive Pelosi was on that. He thinks the demonizing by the Right on the elderly and the disabled is unconscionable, as a FISCAL matter, not a moral one.
T. O'hara
My reading of the CBO scoring was that it was about $823 shy of “revenue neutral” over the next decade, partially offset by $583 billion of new taxes, leaving $239 billion to be added to the deficit. I think we could also agree to disagree whether a “public option” was in fact a form of competition.
Well, the funny part about that was it was the President who brought that subject up. Palin’s original remarks were about “rationed care” (and the argument, well founded in my opinion, that a system such as the one proposed in HR3200 would eventually need to ration care in order to remain sustainable–a position with which you appear to agree–and the decisions would be made by unresponsive boards rather than individuals), not end of life counseling.
T. O'hara
That’s awfully close to doublethink, no? If the proposition here is the media is deferential to Republicans, shouldn’t there be evidence to support such a position? In the most recent important instance, that was obviously not so. Got some reality to base this on?
kay
@T. O’hara:
That’s a rewriting of history on Palin’s remarks. Look, I understand why conservatives are ashamed for jumping on the death panel nonsense, but here’s the deal: you lie to defame a really good public policy that has been in place for nearly 25 years, you don’t then get to back up and claim you didn’t.
I’m watching the walk-back on death panels with much amusement.
Nothing wrong with adopting a cynical lie to beat the crap out of Democrats, it’s what you DO, but I’m an individual, not a pundit, and I’m not gonna fall for an extensive rewrite of what just happened after the fact.
Serious conservatives understand that Medicare has to be reformed, and they also understand that drafting an advanced directive is neither radical or a “death panel”. I know that, and you know that. Serious conservatives chose to promote this lie because it offered short-term political gain.
You own “death panels”, my friend. Enjoy your victory.
kay
@T. O’hara:
“and the argument, well founded in my opinion, that a system such as the one proposed in HR3200 would eventually need to ration care in order to remain sustainable—a position with which you appear to agree—and the decisions would be made by unresponsive boards rather than individuals), not end of life counseling.”
Medicare needs cost controls to remain sustainable. Fact. A Democrat is the best person to sell those, because Democrats invented Medicare, in the same way that General Eisenhower was the perfect person to warn of the military industrial complex, or Gates (finally, maybe) killed the F-22.
It is irresponsible for conservatives to slam Obama for attempting cost-controls on Medicare, but, all I’m asking you to do is OWN IT. You’re bankrupt, so you won’t even do that.
kay
@T. O’hara:
Who, pray tell, makes decisions regarding cost-benefit rationing in the private insurance market?
“An individual”? Really? A kindly country doctor, maybe, just sitting at his desk and struggling with the Big Moral Questions? ?
I mean, really. Aren’t you ashamed of this fairy tale you’re telling?
T. O'hara
What donkey droppings. Do you guys ever bother to check facts? Here is the facebook page, and here is what it said:
If you see anything about end of life counseling in there, I’m ready to apologize. If not, maybe you ought to lighten up with the “you lie” bullshit when you’re obviously wrong.
T. O'hara
Totally agree on the first part, don’t agree on the second. But the real problem with trying to sell the particular bills in the current discussion is that it’s all promises of how things will get better, and no discussion at all as to how to cut costs. The CBO scores it as $239 billion in the red before it gets started, all heavily back-loaded to the 2014-2019 time frame. It cannot work as advertised, and many of your fellow “progressives” will freely admit the goal is to get something they can then modify as they like. It’s a hard sell.
General Winfield Stuck
@T. O’hara:
I would just say in the case of campaign 08 coverage, it would have been impossible for the press to shine the Palin er?Mccain turd into teh positive. Water won’t flow uphill and neither will sewage/ And even Davids Gregory and Broder couldn’t spin that much stupid.
As far as the long term, just the fact we get oodles of airplay on supposed “Death Panels” is enough evidence to support the theory on it’s own. On what other planet would this even get legitimized with mention in any respectable newspaper? Not to mention the Swiftboating of Kerry.
Only Planet Wingnut is the correct answer, where Mr. Murdoch rules the roost with his RW Bullhorn of Crazy.
T. O'Hara
Well, it’s hard to blame that on a right-wing bias when the President is holding forth on it daily.
Yes, I’m sure he really was in Cambodia in 1968 when President Nixon was lying about it, wasn’t he?
General Winfield Stuck
You give a chicken/egg argument that is easy to answer. The press is both and started the egg rolling. Obama has no choice but to respong. Weak tea, we expect better from trolls here.
And this is even weaker tea. Nobody cared about where Kerry was on what day in 1968, beyond being somewhere in Vietnam. They would care, if true, that he shot himself to get medals and then managed to fake his way to getting them. Which of course was all utter BS.
T. O'Hara
Well, I’m pretty sure Nixon wasn’t President in ’68, and Kerry wasn’t in Cambodia, which gives a good indicator where the bulk of the BS was coming from. On your specifics, nobody even says they saw any enemy fire when Kerry got his first Purple Heart (so a fragment from his own M79 is almost certainly the culprit), and everyone agrees it was his own grenade (or Rassmann’s) that got him in the butt for his third. Not the best choice of criteria, if you ask me.
General Winfield Stuck
@T. O’Hara:
I didn’t, and don’t care to engage with RW conspiracy theories. But you wank on, Doesn’t cost anything.
T. O'Hara
Well, you brought up the medals issue, and I notice you don’t care to argue specifics. Which is good, because you’d search in vain for any claim of enemy fire on Dec 2, 1968, or any dispute over the grenade fragment on March 13, 1969, which resulted from dropping grenades in a rice bin. As his buddy Rassmann put it:
Still not the best choice, whether you asked or not.