Well, we've all known for sometime that hardcore Republicans have absolutely no shame. Not after Terri Schiavo. Not after the infamous Sylvia's incident. Not after Mark Foley or Jeff Gannon/Guckert.
But yesterday Rush Limbaugh actually managed to pull out a backhoe and discover a brand new low point. It wasn't bad enough that he implied that any soldier who disagree with him was a "phony" or a some kind of "suicide smear-bomber" or somehow incapable of thinking for himself. Now he's attacked a 12-year-old SCHIP recipient, whose sister has suffered traumatic brain injuries claiming that he's been sent out by the left with a bag of lies.
They filled this kid’s head with lies just as they have some of these soldiers about me.
Did they? Someone around here has a head full of lies, but I don't think it was this particular 12-year-old.
The boy in question is 12-year-old Graeme Frost, who delivered the Democratic radio address a couple weeks ago just prior to the President's veto of S-CHIP.
If it weren’t for SCHIP, I might not be here today. ... We got the help we needed because we had health insurance for us through the CHIP program. But there are millions of kids out there who don’t have CHIP, and they wouldn’t get the care that my sister and I did if they got hurt. ... I just hope the President will listen to my story and help other kids to be as lucky as me.
Republicans were incensed that Democrats would use a child in such a way. How could anyone ever use a child in such a way for crass political purposes?
Anywho - Graeme himself has returned to the Winger gunsights after a Freeper (literally a Free Republic poster named "icwhatudo") claimed that ...
Graeme and his sister Gemma attend wealthy schools that cost "nearly $40,000 per year for tuition" and live in a well-off home.
So now not only did the Democrats commit the sin of sending a child out to do their "dirty work" of saying that taking Health Care away from children is generally a bad idea (so bad it makes "Compassionate" Neo-Cons like Bill Kristol giddy) - now they've supposedly done so with a little health-fare queen?
So far this his prompted attacks on the Frost family from The National Review
The Democrats sign up a sick kid to read their Saturday morning radio address. As Paul Krugman has observed, Bill Kristol, Rush Limbaugh and the rest of us heartless bastards on the right were no doubt too busy laughing to pay attention.
Mr Frost, the "woodworker", owns his own design company and the commercial property it operates from, part of which space he also rents out; they have a 3,000-sq-ft home on a street where a 2,000-sq-ft home recently sold for half a million dollars; he was able to afford to send two children simultaneously to a $20,000-a-year private school; his father and grandfather were successful New York designers and architects; etc.
Bad things happen to good people, and they cause financial problems and tough choices. But, if this is the face of the "needy" in America, then no-one is not needy.
From Michelle Malkin
The Democrats chose to outsource their airtime to a Seventh Grader. If a political party is desperate enough to send a boy to do a man’s job, then the boy is fair game. As it is, the Dems do enough cynical and opportunist hiding behind biography and identity, and it’s incredibly tedious. And anytime I send my seven-year-old out to argue policy you’re welcome to clobber him, too. The alternative is a world in which genuine debate is ended and, as happened with Master Frost, politics dwindles down to professional staffers writing scripts to be mouthed by Equity moppets...
...So executive vice-presidents’ families are now the new new poor? I support lower taxes for the Frosts, increased child credits for the Frosts, an end to the "death tax" and other encroachments on transgenerational wealth transfer, and even severe catastrophic medical-emergency aid of one form or other. But there is no reason to put more and more middle-class families on the government teat, and doing so is deeply corrosive of liberty.
And from Whizbang.
First, Mr. Halsey Frost, Graeme's father, owns his own woodworking design studio, Frostworks, so his claim that he can't get health insurance through work is shockingly deceptive. He chooses not to get health care for his family. Second, Graeme and his sister Gemma attend the very exclusive Park School, which has a tuition of $20,000 a year, per child. Third, they live in a 3,000+ square foot home in a neighborhood with smaller homes that are selling for at least $400,000.
Graeme and his family have also been attacked by Powerline, and the Weekly Standard blog for their partisipation in this gross charade.
I never knew that Republicans hated the "rich" this deeply. It's practically stunning that they would came after one of "their own" so strongly considering how much they love to give tax cuts to the rich. "It's good for the economy" and all that.
There's just one little problem with this outrage parade over the Frost family and their rampant "fleecing of the state."
1) Graeme has a scholarship to a private school. The school costs $15K a year, but the family only pays $500 a year.
2) His sister Gemma attends another private school to help her with the brain injuries that occurred due to her accident. The school costs $23,000 a year, but the state pays the entire cost.
3) They bought their "lavish house" sixteen years ago for $55,000 at a time when the neighborhood was less than safe.
4) Last year, the Frosts made $45,000 combined. Over the past few years they have made no more than $50,000 combined.
5) The state of Maryland has found them eligible to participate in the CHIP program.
So now following in the wake of all this comes Rush Limbaugh playing his favorite tune. "pity the poor Republican victims of the vicious Left-Wing Lies" Yes, that's right those damn dirty liberals have strapped lies onto our solders, and now strapped them onto the poor tiny chidren that the Wingers just want to "save." (By doing the the "compasionate thing" of cutting off their healthcare!)
Boo hoo hooo. Sniff
So the bottom line for me is: They can’t rely on truth to make their case for their cause. They have to lie. Be it about me, be it about their own voters (such as the Frosts) be it about President Bush, they must lie — and anybody who stands in the way of their succeeding with that lie becomes an enemy, becomes a target. That’s where I and my buddies in talk radio come in. We are a thorn in their side because we represent the truth they are trying to hide, the truth that they are lying about, and they have to do something about it — and they have to do that by lying. [...]
They send the kid out to lie. They filled this kid’s head with lies just as they have some of these soldiers about me. Put lies in the kid’s head or put it on the script that he’s reading. He goes out and reads it. He’s 12-years-old! They will use anybody! They’ll corrupt anybody, to get where they’re headed. That’s who they are, folks.
OH Poor Rush, poor poor Rush. He's so maligned and misunderstood. And those libruls are just so EEEEEVil!!!
How could they?
That's right, we lefties will do just about anything to stop the right wing - even tell the fracking truth everyone once in a while if that what it takes.
You should try it Rush, it might ease your poor tortured soul.
Yeah, yeah I know - "fat chance" of that ever happening...
Democrats, including the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, have risen to the Frosts’ defense, saying they earn about $45,000 a year and are precisely the type of working-poor Americans that the program was intended to help.
Ms. Pelosi on Tuesday said, “I think it’s really a sad statement about how bankrupt some of these people are in their arguments against S-chip that they would attack a 12-year-old boy.”
The facts of course, haven't slowed down the ring-wing smear machine.
Republicans on Capitol Hill, who were gearing up to use Graeme as evidence that Democrats have overexpanded the health program to include families wealthy enough to afford private insurance, have backed off.
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.
But Michelle Malkin, one of the bloggers who have strongly criticized the Frosts, insisted Republicans should hold their ground and not pull punches.
“The bottom line here is that this family has considerable assets,” Ms. Malkin wrote in an e-mail message. “Maryland’s S-chip program does not means-test. The refusal to do assets tests on federal health insurance programs is why federal entitlements are exploding and government keeps expanding. If Republicans don’t have the guts to hold the line, they deserve to lose their seats.”
As for accusations that bloggers were unfairly attacking a 12-year-old, Ms. Malkin wrote on her blog, “If you don’t want questions, don’t foist these children onto the public stage.”
Capitol Hill Republicans have thought wisely and decided to cut and run on this issue, but not Malkin - no sirree! She thinks the family should sell off all their assets, including the home, so that they would (temporarily) have enough money to pay for their own healthcare and school tuition. (Which at $40,000 for school, another $20,000 or so for annual healthcare and about $370,000 in assets - maybe - from a depressed housing market for a family with six children - subtracting RENT would last about 3-4 years.)
Ok, so what happens when the kid turns 17 - ship him off to Iraq where he can find out what really shitty healthcare is truly like?
Vyan
No comments:
Post a Comment