I am generally not particularly affected by right-wing nastiness. It's disgusting and I try to highlight the disgusting aspects of right-wing smearing in my Smearkrieg series. But I generally look at right-wing smearing primarily as a tactic by political forces that I oppose. In the case of Graeme Frost, however, I find that I have a lot of anger over right-wing efforts to smear him and his family over the family's receiving S-CHIP assistance.
Thinking about why that is the case, I want to give my "friends" on the right an idea of why the smear didn't work and why it will get worse for them if the story goes on.
The bottom line is that the Frost case reminds me of Terry Schiavo.
What made most Americans disgusted with the conduct of the right in the Schiavo case was that they could imagine the Bill Frists and James Dobsons interfering with their cases if they were catastrophically injured. Would the religious right keep them alive as vegetables for ten years? Twenty? Forty? People were invested in the Schiavo case because they saw what the right was doing to Terry Schiavo as something that could happen to them.
The same is the case with Graeme Frost and his family. The two Frost kids were in a car accident, have had large-scale medical bills, and have benefitted from the S-CHIP program. What makes me angry about the efforts of Malkin and other conservative bloggers to smear the Frosts is that they would just as soon do the same thing to my family if we were in that situation and it suited their political purposes. My family makes more than twice the income of the Frost family but that could easily be wiped out if one of us was injured, became ill, or otherwise wasn't able to work. If my family received assistance as a result of these kinds of events, we could be just as subject to a right-wing inquisition as the Frosts.
And the thought of it pisses me off.
Obviously, it's dangerous for me to generalize from my own anger over the Frost smear to the country as a whole.
But I think that a lot of the reason that the right-wing is losing ground in the Frost controversy is that most Americans have a sense that the right could treat them the same way.
And they don't like it.
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7 comments:
I love how you just flip the bird at the truth in order to service Teh Narrative.
Nobody is going after the 12 year old, except in your head.
“A lot of the reason that the right-wing is losing ground in the Frost controversy is that most Americans have a sense that the right could treat them the same way.” You nailed it Ric. Not only could they treat any of us the same way, they would. Without hesitation. Nothing is sacred. Nothing is off-limits.
The leaders of America’s right wing object to any social program that aids the poor, the hungry, or the uninsured. These programs take tax dollars that could be given to the people who contribute to their campaigns and prop them up year after year. Conservative leaders love welfare as long as it is for them.
Why would we expect these despicable right-wing character assassins to have any shame? Bush and his “people” have left a path of destruction through our political, economic, social, and health care systems. With little else to hide behind, they trash a family that already has a mountain of problems.
This “attack the messenger” approach against an injured child and his family is beyond disgusting. There truly is no bottom to how low Republican leaders will go. These people are sick. How could anyone of good conscience not be outraged. And why does the right-wing blog-o-sphere never question/challenge the Bush administration on ANYTHING?
Undoubtedly, someone who supports the cons will say “the program still exists. So what‘s the problem?” The problem is middle class families need help too. Democrats wanted to expand the coverage into higher income brackets, (appx $45-$55,000 per year). And why not? When private plans cost as much as $800 or $1,000 monthly one wonders what good a private health plan could possibly do. Don’t we care about middle class kids who aren’t covered? There are a great many of them.
Beyond that, if you happen to know anything about the cost of living in Baltimore, MD then you know that a family of six living in a house worth $250,000 in Baltimore DOES NOT make that rich. Far from it. They qualified for the assistance. Of that there is no doubt. From what I have read and seen, the Frosts live in a house assessed at $263,000 (originally bought for $50,000) and make a little under $50,000 a year. That’s peanuts if you have six kids yet critics make it sound as though the Frosts were living like royalty and were just too cheap to buy private insurance. A quarter-million dollars will barely buy a parking space in some parts of D.C., much less cover five months of hospital bills for catastrophic head injuries.
Still, the conservative leadership is adamant, before getting any help from the government, the Frosts should have sold their home and everything else they own to pay the medical bills first. Insanity. What good is government-sponsored health insurance if you first have to become homeless and bankrupt before you're deemed “deserving.” The whole point of social insurance is to protect ordinary citizens from precisely the scenario I just described.
It is infuriating Ric. Anyone who is not sickened by the way this family, especially this child has been treated…I don’t want to know that person.
From the fine Krugman column:
"I don’t know about you, but I think American children who need medical care should get it, period. Even if you think adults have made bad choices — a baseless smear in the case of the Frosts, but put that on one side — only a truly vicious political movement would respond by punishing their injured children."
But, no one was attacking the children, just the parents. Parents who happen to have children who rely on them. If you keep muttering "no one's attacking the boy" over and over again, you realize that it IS rational to invade Iraq in order for 9/11, that freedom does mean the government can obtain information about you without warrant, and that rich people are the only people who deserve medical care.
Who attacked the child?
How is poiting out that the Parents Frost made an irresponsible decision for their children when they elected to not purchase health insurance prior to the accident?
Keep saying it, JD. You'll be at a 0% capital gains tax and a regressive income tax in two days. I have faith. Hey, why don't you go beat up on that Robert guy again. That was a nice swarm you folks did.
Uh oh! Professor Douchebag is pissed off. Better watch out!
BECAUSE PEOPLE SHOULDN'T HAVE TO PURCHASE HEALTH CARE DIP-SHIT!! IT IS A HUMAN RIGHT, NOT A COMMODITY!
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