(in radio-guy voice) Welcome to Tommy eh-eh-eh-X’s House Healthcare Morning Zoo! (funny sound effect) This next request comes from the poster with the most-er, the tweep who will make you weep, Kimberly HANEYYYYY! (cue sexy sax music)
Kimberly writes in “Dear Tommy EH-EH-EH-X!!! (explosion sound effect), please decipher Pg 145 Line 15-17 – in your words, please.”
Happy to do it, Kimmie, so buckle the (BLEEEP) up, baby, ‘cus here..it..COMES! Continue reading
Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer wrote an op-ed piece for USA Today that makes a lot of excellent points about the current healthcare debate. Unfortunately, they lead with the kind of loaded statement that plays into the right’s “stifling dissent” meme. The title of the piece is ‘Un-American’ attacks can’t derail health care debate.
Forget, for a moment, whether Pelosi and Hoyer actually make an effective case for the Un-Americaninity of the town hall protesters. For the top two members of the House of Representatives to use the phrase “Un-American” bespeaks a tone-deafness beyond belief, evoking echoes of McCarthyism. It also represents a hypocritical brandishing of the patriotism cudgel that the Democrats have just spent 8 years decrying.
The shame of it all is that the loaded phrase only appears once in the body of the article, and doesn’t really add much to the proceedings:
These disruptions are occurring because opponents are afraid not just of differing views — but of the facts themselves. Drowning out opposing views is simply un-American. Drowning out the facts is how we failed at this task for decades.
The fact is, there are many things you can call the protesters, but “Un-American” isn’t one of them, especially not from a liberal standpoint. Are they rude? Misinformed? In some cases, delusional? All of these are expressions of freedom that are as American as an apple pie baked by a bald eagle at a baseball game.
While they are correct in denouncing things like effigies of specific members of congress, they are clearly referring to the disruptive protesters as a whole, and the language of McCarthy is inappropriate and unhelpful.
The American response to these protesters is not to call them “Un-American,” but to shine the light of truth on them. When they chant, invite them up on stage and see what facts they’ve brought with them. The balance of Pelosi’s and Hoyer’s piece contain some facts that are pretty tough to argue with:
The first fact is that health insurance reform will mean more patient choice. It will allow every American who likes his or her current plan to keep it. And it will free doctors and patients to make the health decisions that make the most sense, not the most profits for insurance companies.
Reform will mean stability and peace of mind for the middle class. Never again will medical bills drive Americans into bankruptcy; never again will Americans be in danger of losing coverage if they lose their jobs or if they become sick; never again will insurance companies be allowed to deny patients coverage because of pre-existing conditions.
Lower costs, better care
Reform will mean affordable coverage for all Americans. Our plan’s cost-lowering measures include a public health insurance option to bring competitive pressure to bear on rapidly consolidating private insurers, research on health outcomes to better inform the decisions of patients and doctors, and electronic medical records to help doctors save money by working together. For seniors, the plan closes the notorious Medicare Part D “doughnut hole” that denies drug coverage to those with between $2,700 and $6,100 per year in prescriptions.
Reform will also mean higher-quality care by promoting preventive care so health problems can be addressed before they become crises. This, too, will save money. We’ll be a much healthier country if all patients can receive regular checkups and tests, such as mammograms and diabetes exams, without paying a dime out-of-pocket.
What kind of sorcery is this? Organizing for America sent me an email (a technology that I’m still not convinced won’t at least “borrow without asking” my soul) urging me to visit my local Democratic congressman. Eerily so: (via email)
According to our records, you live near Rep. John Adler’s office in Toms River, NJ.
We’re through the looking glass, here, people. They know where I live! Continue reading
The Democratic National Committee released a web ad Tuesday that seems to have hit a “Marathon Man”-style nerve 
with conservatives online. Entitled “Enough of the Mob,” the ad features clips of recent disruptions at health care town hall meetings, including a “Birther” with what looks like a large wonton wrapper in a Ziploc bag.
The ad has sparked a wave of anger and defiance from conservatives online, who collected their grievances under the hashtag “I am the mob.” The common refrain is that the ad amounts to demonization of dissent, similar to 2007’s “Moveon.org Resolution”, and fearmongering, similar to conservative attempts to convince people that the reform bill mandates euthanasia.
The media, meanwhile, continues to debate the authenticity of these protests as grassroots movement vs. special interest-funded astroturf.
Mary Katherine Ham, however, has broken one of the spokes in the DNC’s ad. She reports at The Weekly Standard that the Right Principles “playbook” featured in the ad doesn’t actually spring from “high-level Republican political operatives” at all:
Right Principles has a Facebook group with 23 members and a Twitter account with five followers. MacGuffie describes himself as an “opponent of leftist thinking in America,” and told me he’s “never pulled a lever” for a Republican or Democrat on a federal level. Yet this Connecticut libertarian’s influence over a national, orchestrated Republican health-care push-back is strong, indeed, if you listen to liberal pundits and the Democratic National Committee, who have crafted a nefarious web out of refutable evidence.
It would be hard to characterize these folks as high-level, even in today’s Republican Party.
Ham goes on to deconstruct the route between Think Progress’ story, MSNBC’s reporting of it, and the DNC ad.
This is a great example of the pitfalls of taking shortcuts. The DNC would have been better served by laying out the funding sources of healthcare reform opposition, a difficult concept to fit into a 2-second graphic.
As for attacking the protesters themselves, the wisdom is questionable. The White House has avoided this so far, drawing a line between the protesters and the special interests behind them. The risk is that ordinary Americans will identify with the protesters, and see this as bullying.
On the other hand, the anger of the right at this ad might play right into the DNC’s hands, making opposition to healthcare reform seem unattractive.
A less risky, but tough to fit into 60 seconds, strategy might be to engage the protesters. Keith Olbermann reported last night on just such an example, a town hall meeting by Texas Democrat Gene Green that seemed to go pretty well. Given a fair hearing, it’s tough to relate to the fact that almost all of them have adequate healthcare, yet they oppose extending it to those who don’t.
In any case, it’s obvious that what the healthcare debate needs is less fearmongering, and more factmongering.
This has been bugging me for a few days, ever since I saw the clip of this woman with the Bible on Countdown. It’s featured in the DNC’s new “Mob” ad:
As a bible-raised former evangelical, I can attest that there is no way that woman is a real evangelical conservative. Any fundamentalist worth his salt would notice that she’s holding a New American Standard Bible. Pfft! It may as well be a Playboy magazine. If you go to a sword drill with anything but a King James, you are unarmed, my friend.
As for the ad, I think the DNC gets it right, or more right than Olbermann did on Countdown. He focused on the fact that these people might have been carpetbaggers, and that they’re following a script, all in an effort to make the effort seem fake.
However, as some have pointed out, progressive groups fund organized protests, as well, and all organized protests operate under some sort of strategic guidelines.
The DNC ad zeroes in on the real key here, which is that these protesters are knuckleheads doing the bidding of bozos. Lee Stranahan sums it up well, too:
Something else about these protesters: They each have a great, healthy set of lungs. It’s easy to shout down healthcare reform when you’ve already got yours. Kinda like protesting food stamps with a Twinkie in each hand.
I think the best way to deal with them at town hall meetings is to bring them up onstage, hear what they have to say. In short order, Americans will remember why they voted these jokers out in November.
Daily Dose 
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