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Using a child to push a political agenda…
…of course, the Republicans would NEVER do such a thing, so that makes it OK to attack the child when the Democrats do it.
Oh, wait a minute…
25 Responses to “Using a child to push a political agenda…”
Of course they would! C’mon, let’s be real. Most party pols of either party would pimp out their grannies if they tought it would buy them votes. Then they’d use the bedroom pics as blackmail material.
Typical Jack….
the GOP wasn’t criticizing the abstract of having/using kids, they were criticizing the particulars of this specific kid, that (1) he was simply a prop, reading a script someone else wrote for him and (2) given his family’s financial situation, he was far from the poster child of uninsured child that the Democrats were portraying him to be.
now contrast your poster child with the ‘GOP’ kid. Your kid reads a script and likely couldn’t answer squat about the subject at hand without having someone whisper an answer to him, the other kid knows his material down pat, so much so that he beat howard dean in a (presumably political) trivia contest, and has (and presumably at least referenced) 3,000 books on presidential history.
But you know that, you know this isn’t a case of the pot calling the kettle black (which, unfortunately, there are plenty of cases of it happening), you’re not responding to the merits of the GOP complaints, you simply resort to the old tired ‘you’re doing it too, you hypocritical b*****ds’, the cheap rhetorical trick that doesn’t hold up to scrutiny, as if that gets your side off the hook.
And why not? Your fan base of fellow derangees isn’t going to call you on it, they’re sitting at home in their pajamas nodding their heads as they praise you for speaking truth to power.
Well, then he would make the perfect spokeschild for the President’s Presidential History Reform Plan. Any data on how many books he’s read about Social Security?
stevesturm,
the family makes 45k, lives in a modest home, has a disabled daughter who needs special care, and malkin questioned why they would rather live in a home than have their own healthcare.
so they gave the kid a script to read…you dont think he knows his family cant afford healthcare???
Jack:
You neglected to put up links to all of the liberal and left-wingers who attacked young Noah and his family. I will look forward to reading about them.
This is exactly the poing.
Everybody does it.
Everybody attacks it.
Everybody keeps on doing it,, in particular those whod are in the midst of denouncing it right now.
The smell form hypocrisy is polluting outer space.
What Shaun said.
Shaun,
Google it. DU and Ezra Klein were the first ones to show up on my search engine. Only in volume is there a difference (which I suspect is more a reflection on how much worse things have gotten since 05, rather than an actual vindication of liberal bloggers, but I will concede it nonetheless).
Ezra and DU sent people to question the employer of the kids father and the neighbors?
What google do you use?
C Stanley–
I have to agree with Davebo. What words did you search with?
uncle joe: anyone who lives in a $400,000 house and spends $20,000 to send their kids to private school CAN afford to pay for health insurance, they are choosing to spend their money on other things and as such, warrant neither sympathy nor support from those who choose to spend their money on health insurance. If they wanted health insurance so badly, they could do lots of things: move to a cheaper house, send their kids to public schools, get jobs that offer health insurance.
And shaun, it is so typical of you to argue that someone is being ‘attacked’ because their ideas and proposals are being criticized. Your side doesn’t have the facts to dispute the substantive criticisms of (1) this kid’s particular circumstances and (2) an unjustified expansion of the program…. so you just resort to name calling of those who disagree with you. It’s a great ploy: no need to defend your arguments on their merits when you can simply call your opponents racist, sexist, warmonging, corrupt and have all your fellow useful idiots cheering you on.
Davebo: I don’t know what you’re talking about. Shaun made a snide remark as though liberal bloggers couldn’t possibly have attacked this kid, and I suspected that some of them probably had- so I searched the kid’s name (yahoo search engine) and saw the two blogs I mentioned which did in fact attack the kid (and while I realize that bloggers aren’t responsible for the comment section, the comments were just lovely).
I already mentioned that the volume was less than what is occurring now, but as to your question I assume you’re saying that no one did what Michelle Malkin did- but no one (including me) alleged that an equivalent thing happened.
I really didn’t think this was important enough to post links, but since two people questioned me on it, here you go:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104×2411688
http://ezraklein.typepad.com/blog/2005/02/this_noahs_on_a.html
Gotcha. It’s just a “bbbuttt…”
C Stanley. Hello. It’s been quite awhile.
I think the point Jack and Shaun and Davebo were making is that aside from snide remarks on those few blogs, no lefty bloggers actually got in their cars and drove by the people’s houses, no lefty blogger linked or posted the address and phone numbers of their workplaces and worse, their home.
Noah’s personal life and wasn’t taken apart and conjecture about it and flat out mistruths (see stevestrum’s post for example that even now misinformation is taken as fact) across the web.
You can find two, and I read the Klein one (I don’t go to DU and not many other people do either). If you think that what has happened to the Frost’s is the same then I do not know what to say.
The people who are responsible for this outrageous behaviour are the Malkins and any other blogger/radio personality that has contributed. The Frosts and the Democrats did not “make them do it”. They chose this path and are rightly condemned for their behaviour.
It is one thing to discuss SCHIP, it is another to stalk a family.
Cstanley:
My remark was not snide.
I do not believe that on the whole people on one side of the political spectrum make nicer than people on another. I simply asked that the poster provide links that are examples of attacks on Master Noah.
As it is, one of your links was bad; the other was Ezra being Klein.
capelza,
Perhaps if Shaun had said that what you did, I wouldn’t have rebutted it, but what he in fact said (sarcastically, obviously) was for Jack to post the links to left wing sites that ‘attacked’ the child that had been used to promote GOP politics. Which I did, after I pointed out that they do exist, and then two commenters pressed for more information. End of story (note: no claim of equivalence, in case you missed it the first couple of times I said it).
Ah, well, forgive me if I read sarcasm where it wasn’t intended then, Shaun. Maybe you can call off the folks who are piling on me for answering your call, then.
stevesturm: They bought that house when it was only $55,000, and the father, being a cabinetmaker by trade, made a lot of upgrades on his own. The housing bubble being what it was, the house appreciated. Meanwhile, their tuition costs for that school you talk about is $500, not $20,000, because the school itself gives them heavy financial assistance. For you to use those two lies to claim they could afford health care is outrageous.
We have millions of substantive reasons for why the program should be expanded, and they’re all kids like Graeme who couldn’t afford to get sick if they didn’t have SCHIP. What’s *your* reasons for dooming kids to deaths that could easily be prevented by applying an effective, inexpensive program that has been proven to work? I’m waiting.
I’m not certain about the provenance of stevesturm’s information.
Here’s what I found:
Source: Think Progress.
Maybe the dad can help out with the US embassy in Iraq. Seems the embassy is behind schedule and over budget, must be the Dem’s fault. Maybe the dad can fix the cabinets to cover his welfare for the kids injured in a car accident.
so what that the house only cost them $55,000? It’s worth $400,000, money, if they were to sell and rent, that could be spent on buying health insurance. If they want to live in their own house, fine, but that ought not obligate society to pick up for the tab for what they could pay for but choose not to. (except for leeches like this crowd who seem to think that those who make more money have a duty to bend over and let you all take from them what they’ve made).
I stand corrected on the costs of the school.
And is it a lie to argue that either or both of them could go get jobs that offer health insurance? Given the low unemployment in the area (the DC market, not far from Baltimore, has one of the lowest unemployment rates in the country), he ought to have no problem matching his pay at a company that offers health insurance. If the father wants to be his own boss, that is his prerogative, but don’t expect me to cry over – or have to pay for – the fact that his work and lifestyle choices limits him in some ways.
Graeme’s family is the poster child for why the program shouldn’t be expanded. They have money, they have options, they could have taken steps to cover themselves, but have chosen not to. It’s one thing to offer a societal safety net to those who truly need it, for situations not of their own making. It’s another thing to subsidize the lifestyles of those too stupid and/or lazy to do the right thing.
And shade_tail, you poor ignorant thing. Didn’t anyone ever explain to you there’s a difference between health insurance and health care? If Graeme gets sick, he gets treated regardless of whether his parents have insurance and/or money to pay the bills. It may not be as good as care as one would get when one is paying the bills, but to suggest that SCHIP is all that stands between him dying is either ignorant or an intentional distortion of the situation for partisan purposes. Which is it for you?
It’s uncanny how the stroy line of those oppsed to expanding SCHIP echoes the story lines of the past for other social programs, when all the recipients were portrayed as blacks driving Calillacs or single mothers. No citation of statistics showing the black/while ratio was accepted. The story line lived on: the recipients were black and lazy, and most important of all, IT WAS THEIR OWN FAULT.
For the SCHIP debate, only a few words needed to changed . The story line was already waiting, pre-packaged. No factual information will leave a dent in it.
Harassment by the likes of Malkin gets, at best, an
‘i don’t approve’, and then it’s back to the story line.
Sometimes I get so frustrated with Dems I want to go to Washington and physically shake some sense into them. After this, I;ll remember the Republicans on this, and I’ll be glad the Dems are there.
stevesturm, just a few quick points regarding your last comment -
so what that the house only cost them $55,000? It’s worth $400,000
The house may be worth $400,000 now, but that doesn’t mean they could sell it for $400,000. I don’t know the specific neighborhood where they live, but I do know that the Baltimore housing market has been hit hard in the last year. Depending on the location, they might not be able to sell the house for a reasonable price considering its value. And while I can see your logic that they shouldn’t feel entitled to state-funded healthcare when they have a $400,000 asset, it doesn’t seem right to me that they should have to give up something they’ve obviously worked very hard for in exchange for basic healthcare.
the DC market, not far from Baltimore, has one of the lowest unemployment rates in the country
The problem with this logic is twofold. First, DC is at least a 1 hour commute from Baltimore on a good day. The traffic and congestion in this area is legendary. So even if he found a job in the DC area, his expenses for gas and car maintenance would go up, and his time to spend with his family would be diminished. And second, I honestly don’t know how good or bad unemployment is in Baltimore statistically speaking, but I do know that the job market is rough. Yes, a lot of places are hiring, but most of the available jobs don’t offer health insurance. So Mr. Frost could theoretically close up his cabinet-making business and start sending out resumes, but there’s no guarantee that he’ll find a better paying job with benefits. There aren’t a whole lot of office/corporate jobs out there with carpentry skills listed in their requirements.
“so what that the house only cost them $55,000? It’s worth $400,000, money, ”
Lol exactly why the program is needed. Steve you basicaly are ok with the fact that healthcare will cost them their house. THEIR HOUSE! The thing most of us consider the brass ring, the thing we work our asses off to secure and call our own and you would have them sell it like an old sportscard on eBay. You sir are dreadfully out of touch.