I've had a fascinating exchange of emails with Representative Boyda's health care specialist on the subject of SCHIP. Feeding him the critique from the right, and getting his take on it, and asking specific questions. The bottom line - there is a lot of mischaracterization out there, on both sides, and misinformation, on both sides - and the subject is too complex for 30-second soundbites and 500-word editorials. I tried to figure out a way to blog it - but the only way to do so is a blog post that would make Kat's and Ry's posts seem like postcards. Well, that and the fact that this isn't a health care blog... Suffice it to say - a pox on all their houses.
The *amusing* bit about this is watching the sputtering vitriol foaming from lefty bloggers about how the meanies of the RightBlogs are seemingly stomping Graeme Frost and his family into a gelatinous mass of goo - how *dare* they attack the messenger!?!?!?!!!
Admittedly, with the carpy access I've had and busy schedule, I've not followed this all that much, I did happen across this while link-skipping around that shows how some of the bigger bloggers, who use Google to find evidence to castigate their targets for flip-flopping hypocrisy or outright lying are... well... hoist on their own petard, so to speak.
Over at Firedoglake, we find this gem:
The difference between the far right wing and the far left wing: the far right will do anything — anything — so long as the ends justifies the means. The far left folks have ethical boundaries that they try very hard not to cross: things like attacking other people’s minor children is bad form . . .
Now, at this place, we have The Rulez. Number 1 applies in this case:
1. If all you have to say boils down to: "I don't like what you said, so therefore I will mock you mercilessly!" don't bother. I'll edit your post in unflattering ways. Ergo, attack the message, not the messenger.
Sometimes, however, the messenger *is* the message and thus becomes fair game for analysis, but not character assasination.
So, Christy Hardin Smith, writing at Firedoglake, (nice screen cap of Michelle, too!) asserts that the Left side of the 'sphere has ethical boundaries they try hard not to trip over.
Good to know.
So, I'm sure - that all these bloggers that John Henke of QandO found... are hopping around on one foot, retroactively having stubbed their rhetorical toes.
The Republicans have trotted out their own Policy Munchkin. Noah McCullough, nine years old at the time, was used to push the President's Social Security plan.
Of course, those ethical lefties would *never* - well, maybe not never, but they'd try real hard not to, because they're all about compassion and stuff, and that's what matters, right? Trying hard. Having good intentions, actual actions being, well, don't bring that up it's rude!
So, what did Mr. Henke find? Just this:
Jesus' General and TBogg, who made sexual references to the kid. Kewpie, who called him "a budding young fascist" and "dumb" DadaHead, who said the kid was "in desperate need of a good ass-kicking... Democratic Underground, where commenters wrote quite a lot of things that I don't care to reprint Salon's What Would Dick Think, Daily Kos and Atrios, who called the kid "Cousin Oliver" And, at Ezra Klein's own blog, Melissa McEwan said his appearance was "indicative of a desperation reserved for policy proposals that are ready for the graveyard"...
Heh. I'm sure there's lots of open-toed shoes being worn this week at lefty blogmeets.
Not.
Just sayin'.
2 Comments