Dick of All Time: Cheney

I was all set to hand Harry Reid another D.O.W. for his crowded mantle to reward his latest and all-too-typical bedwetting routine, when—suddenly—a one-time Dark Lord crawled out of his cave (and supposed "retirement"), complete with a Bond villain's blood-filled eye, to once again use his secret satellite scrambler to commandeer the Earth's airwaves the supine media to broadcast his lies and threats across the globe. I don't have the time or energy to unpack the load of bullshit he dropped or diagnose the pathology behind his evil. Not when others have already done it, and better than I could...

I'll skip the blow-by-blow and laundry lists of lies for the big picture: Publius articulated the most disgusting part of Cheney's outlook and motive better than anyone else I saw...

There was one part of Cheney’s speech that disturbed me though. From listening to Cheney (and others), you get the sense that they are now rooting for another terrorist attack.

In that respect, Cheney’s speech was more than a retroactive defense of past criminal acts. He was looking ahead. He was setting up the political chessboard to attack Obama and the Democrats in a particularly poisonous way if – God forbid – we are attacked again.

It’s a pretty neat trick. The Bush/Cheney administration radicalizes a new generation of terrorists through actions like torture and unnecessary wars. Then, when the blowback comes, they’ll try to blame it on someone else – specifically, on the people trying to clean up their mess.

[...] One of the many problems with the Cheney/Geraghty logic is that the Bush administration’s methods can’t be judged strictly on short term results – just like the effects of smoking cigarettes can’t be judged purely in the short term. The blowback from these actions takes years or even decades to fully materialize (see, e.g., USSR vs. Afghanistan in the 1980s). God only knows, for instance, how many battle-hardened terrorists we’ve created and trained in the “classroom” of Iraq. And who knows what they’ll do.

But anyway, a terrorist attack will happen one day. When it does, Cheney and his followers announced today that they will seek to divide the country based on fear and hate and paranoia – just like they did in 2002.

There's no "will seek" about it, however. It's what they've done every day since 9/11, today, and for as long as it works. And, it works. Because half the country is braindead, and the supposed "liberal" media plays right along...

That's why headlines and media coverage like this piss me off so much.



This isn't a "debate." It's brinkmanship coupled with a seditious attack and a framejob. It's perjury by a fucking criminal trying to cover his ass and at the same time set up the serious man tasked with the nearly impossible—attempting to clean up one of history's all-time clusterfucks and lead a polarized and abused populace back from the brink of multiple crises—all a direct result of this very villain's damn-the-costs smash-and-grab actions in office.

And in their never-ending thirst for political "FIGHT! FIGHT! FIGHT!" coverage, the media is treating these two men and their remarks as somehow equal and as some kind of legitimate point/counterpoint. That headline might just as well read Obama, Limbaugh Debate Gitmo. Goddamn ridiculous.

There are only two media outlets worth a damn. The Daily Show and McClatchey/Knight-Ridder. Both put on an actual journalism clinic:

McClatchey: Cheney's speech contained omissions, misstatements

Stewart: May 21, 2009: American Idealogues

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	M - Th 11p / 10c
American Idealogues
thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Economic Crisis Political Humor

Torture(d) Logic

"You lose it here and you're in a world of hurt."



I'd buy pay-per-view of Jesse wiping the studio with Sean Hannity

--

STRAW MEN AND FALSE CHOICES
Matt Taibbi...

...this is not a question of taking different sides in a war; this is two groups of Americans having a disagreement about how best to deal with a foreign enemy both of these groups of Americans despise, fear and revile equally. My group, the anti-torture group, believes that what should make us superior to terrorists is respect for law and due process and civilization, and that when we give in and use these tactics, we forfeit that superiority and actually confer a kind of victory to the al Qaedas of the world, people who should never be allowed any kind of victory in any arena. We furthermore think that the war on terror doesn’t get won with force alone, that it’s a conflict that ultimately has to be won politically, by winning a propaganda battle against these assholes, and we can’t win that battle so easily if people in the Middle East see us openly embrace these tactics.

--

CREEPING CULPABILITY
An excellent point from Matthew Schmitz at plumblines:

We cannot tiptoe around the fact that our government engaged in profoundly evil acts in the name of American citizens. No matter how vehemently we disagree with the actions of the torturers, the fact remains that they were done in the name of the American people. It is true, of course, that “we” the citizens of the United States are not morally culpable for what our elected representatives and their subordinates did. But we are politically responsible. If we fail to pursue justice and punish the malefactors, we start to share in the blame for the actions they performed.

Much as Obama becomes a part of the cover-up for failing to prosecute, it will trickle down to us too, if we don't force the politicians to do the right thing—or drive their asses out of office if they don't, we all start to own it.

Of course the problem is this: next election we'll be faced with choosing between a party that gives lip service to the rule of law, yet doesn't enforce it, versus a party openly threatening to operate a torture regime if they regain power.

--

IOKIYAR
Eric Martin at Obsidian Wings compiles a list of old quotes from some prominent people regarding America and torture. These same words uttered today would be cast as those of a naive idealist or a pacifist weakling...yet it was the public position of these "tough guys"—until they were exposed.

Screw Yoo

Even more evidence of the "Liberal Media"...

The Philadelphia Inquirer has hired John Yoo as a monthly columnist.

Being a war criminal sure has its benefits, it seems.

The paper's lame excuse that they are trying to diversify viewpoints and counter a reputation of being too liberal is a crock of shit. Trust me—there is no one on the payroll far enough to the left to balance Yoo. I'm sure any "liberal" columnists that get columns are typical, shallow-end syndicated hacks—and as such, at or just slightly left of center.

The right-wing noise machine has so effectively worked the refs that the paper feels pressed to run out and hire a guy so far to the right that he's off the chart.

Yet another example of how presenting two sides of an argument—without regard for the truth, honesty or accuracy—is what passes for "journalism" these days.

--Sidebar: If you think that news is depressing enough, spend a little time in the comment thread. The volume of comments supporting Yoo and the paper is astonishing and completely disheartening.

Policy Shift or Strategy?

Either way, it's good news. Tapper:

President Holds Open Door For Prosecutions
President Obama suggested today that it remained a possibility that the Justice Department might bring charges against officials of the Bush administration who devised harsh interrogation policies that some see as torture.

He also suggested that if there is any sort of investigation into these past policies and practices, he would be more inclined to support an independent commission outside the typical congressional hearing process.

[...] in clear change from language he and members of his administration have used in the past, the president said that "with respect to those who formulated those legal decisions, I would say that is going to be more of a decision for the Attorney General within the parameters of various laws and I don't want to prejudge that."

This is very good news. It also lends some credence to the theory that Obama was playing chess by releasing the memos only after a court ordered response to FOIA request "forced him" to, using that to gin up public outrage, and THEN assign any investigations / inquiries / truth commissions to other, more neutral parties...

For that to happen, pressure must still be applied constantly to Obama, Holder and also to Congress.

[via Benen]

Reading Assignment

Former Powell Chief of Staff Lawrence Wilkerson responds to Cheney's softball/talking points "interview" on CNN.

First, Wilkerson again explains how badly the Bush Administration failed in it's "interrogations" and how illegal they were...

The fourth unknown is the ad hoc intelligence philosophy that was developed to justify keeping many of these people, called the mosaic philosophy. Simply stated, this philosophy held that it did not matter if a detainee were innocent. Indeed, because he lived in Afghanistan and was captured on or near the battle area, he must know something of importance (this general philosophy, in an even cruder form, prevailed in Iraq as well, helping to produce the nightmare at Abu Ghraib). All that was necessary was to extract everything possible from him and others like him, assemble it all in a computer program, and then look for cross-connections and serendipitous incidentals--in short, to have sufficient information about a village, a region, or a group of individuals, that dots could be connected and terrorists or their plots could be identified.

Thus, as many people as possible had to be kept in detention for as long as possible to allow this philosophy of intelligence gathering to work. The detainees' innocence was inconsequential. After all, they were ignorant peasants for the most part and mostly Muslim to boot.

[...] Simply stated, even for those two dozen or so of the detainees who might well be hardcore terrorists, there was virtually no chain of custody, no disciplined handling of evidence, and no attention to the details that almost any court system would demand. Falling back on "sources and methods" and "intelligence secrets" became the Bush administration's modus operandi to camouflage this grievous failing.

Then he calls Cheney out for crawling out of his lair to revise history, fear-monger and sabotage and smear Obama...

Recently, in an attempt to mask some of these failings and to exacerbate and make even more difficult the challenge to the new Obama administration, former Vice President Cheney gave an interview from his home in McLean, Virginia. The interview was almost mystifying in its twisted logic and terrifying in its fear-mongering.

As to twisted logic: "Cheney said at least 61 of the inmates who were released from Guantanamo (sic) during the Bush administration...have gone back into the business of being terrorists." So, the fact that the Bush administration was so incompetent that it released 61 terrorists, is a valid criticism of the Obama administration? Or was this supposed to be an indication of what percentage of the still-detained men would likely turn to terrorism if released in future? Or was this a revelation that men kept in detention such as those at GITMO--even innocent men--would become terrorists if released because of the harsh treatment meted out to them at GITMO? Seven years in jail as an innocent man might do that for me. Hard to tell.

As for the fear-mongering: "When we get people who are more interested in reading the rights to an Al Qaeda (sic) terrorist than they are with protecting the United States against people who are absolutely committed to do anything they can to kill Americans, then I worry," Cheney said. Who in the Obama administration has insisted on reading any al-Qa'ida terrorist his rights? More to the point, who in that administration is not interested in protecting the United States--a clear implication of Cheney's remarks.

Evil personified. Richard Cheney deserves to have a fucking bag thrown over his head, abduction, swift "rendition" to Iraq to dropped off in Sadr City, where he can try to "interview" his way out of his inevitable horrible death.

UPDATE: Wilkerson's not off the hook with me, but I don't have time for that right now.

Dick of the Week Update: Late Entry Blows Away Field

Early last week I tossed a few possible D.O.W.'s out for consideration...the usual harmless political douchebaggery. On Friday, John Cole posted a video that sealed the deal for King County Sheriff's Deputy Paul Schene.

I actually skipped the embedded video at the time because I thought it might be too disturbing—I have a thing about watching what I KNOW is actual, real violence. I've viewed it since, but with the video all over the place now, you can watch it somewhere else if you like. Here's what happens:

A 6'2", 195-pound 31 year old sheriff bum rushes and beats the shit out of an in-custody 15 year old girl in a holding cell for kicking her sneaker off in his direction. Deputy Schene has pleaded not guilt to misdemeanor assault [news story here].

First off, good luck with that, motherfucker. You did it in front of a camera, and now the whole world wants your ass in a sling. But misdemeanor assault? That looks like serious fucking felony assault and battery to me. Deputy Asshole deserves a lengthy sentence in actual prison, and I hope everyone on the block knows who he is and why he's there.

01.20.09

The best part of all of this is the fact that after the years of waiting for this day, when it finally arrives, it's no longer about George W. Bush in any way.

Wow.*

I haven't touched this "Obama Mugger" story all day because I attributed this horrible sequence of events to the independent and desperate act of a single, disturbed person crying out for attention/help. I didn't want to contribute to the publicity of the event or the resultant backlash.

But this is a serious development...

McCain Spokesman Implicated In Mugger Hoax

Not some local yahoo. The Communications Director of one of the remaining states McCain is seriously and actively contesting.

*Am I honestly really even surprised anymore? Let this fucking election end already.

Unbelievable Palin Video of the Day

Sarah Palin is asked whether abortion clinic bombers fit her definition of terrorists... Watch for yourself:

"I don’t know if you’re going to use the word ‘terrorist’ there..."

What other word would you use, Governor?

I'm not sure which is more offensive: her ham-handed attempt to work her Ayers talking points into her non-response, or the blatant wink-and-nod this was to the fringe right.

I'd say the Army of God's record stacks up pretty well against the Weather Underground, and they are just ONE of these groups. They alone killed more people, set more bombs, sent out anthrax threat letters, maintain an online hitlist, and had members all over the FBI Ten Most Wanted List. The original Weather Underground only targeted property and gave warnings of their attacks. AoG bomber Eric Rudolph killed people at clinics and a gay bar—but I suppose they don't meet your definition of "innocent." What about the people killed and maimed by the bomb he set in the crowd at Centennial Olympic Park in Atlanta?

So yes, Governor, you fucking monster, you sure as hell use the word "terrorist" there.

And Senator? Sitting there with your fucking Maverick™ thumb up your ass while she spouts this bile right in front of you? You still "so proud of her?" Reap what you've sown, you worthless coward.

UPDATE: Look at the two of them again...Which one is the VP? McCain is baggage to her now—she's not campaigning for now, she's laying groundwork for 2012.

Recommended Reading

The best breakdown of what happened to financial sector I've seen. Hilarious, but also breaks it down beautifully. Check it out...

Economic Disasters and Stupid Evil People

It's a thing of beauty.

Holy. Fucking. Bullshit.

I had no intention of blogging politics tonight. In fact, last night I became so despondent about the damn election, I didn't think I wanted to waste my time anymore.

That didn't last long.

McCain launched another ad today, and even though his past several ads have been totally dishonest and infuriating, nothing approaches what he does in this one.

[blood. boiling.]

It's an "education" spot. The ad warms up by pulling some out-of-context quotes from newspaper articles to claim Obama is bad for "supporting the public school monopoly" or some bullshit, but that's just the pretext for bringing up the most dishonest and offensive attack I think I've EVER seen in a political ad.

McCain's shop takes an awkward photo of Obama, silhouettes it out of its setting, and uses it as the visual for a claim that basically accuses Obama of being, at best, a leering pervert—or, at worst, a fucking child molester.

[voiceover] Obama's one accomplishment? Legislation to teach "comprehensive sex education" to kindergartners.

Learning about sex...

...before learning to read?

Barack Obama.

Wrong on education. Wrong for your family. "

That's a goddamn outrage.

I know exactly what that claim is misrepresenting, because right wing asshats tried to make hay with this a year or two ago... In Illinois, Obama supported a program that has nothing to do with "sex education" in the sense McCain implies—it was a program to teach children about inappropriate touching to help protect them from predators.

Accusing a man who is the father of two young girls, who supports commmon-sense precautions that are commonly taught in schools and communities nationwide, of being some sort of perv or sex offender.

John McCain "approves this message."

What a fucking desperate, pathetic, piece of shit of a man he is.

UPDATE: Talking Points Memo has the video, Steve Benen Hilzoy has more, including details on the legislation.

FOLLOW-UP: I'm not settling for some weak-ass statement from an Obama campaign spokeperson. This calls for a direct response from Obama himself. Not in response to a reporter, but buy a fucking spot and ram this shit down McCain's throat. When McCain hasn't been trying to paint Obama as an arugula-eating elitist, he's been working the scary, angry black man angle.

Time for Obama to be angry alright. But with a twist McCain will regret. Nothing is more powerful or righteous than an angry parent. McCain just opened the door for Obama to rip his goddamn head off. Will he do it?

UPDATE 2: The Rude Pundit is on the same page...

We know the game here, the racial politics, the fear of sex that's rampant on the right. John McCain has finally released his rage and hatred, and it is a sight to behold. Watching McCain unleashed is like watching a starving tiger in a pen of gazelle. It ain't gonna be pretty. The Rude Pundit imagines McCain seeing the faces of his captors in everyone he looks at, and he's got a bayonet.

Unless the Obama campaign starts throwing shit at McCain, it will be over. Yeah, Obama wants to change politics, but ask anyone who has ever tried to subvert a system: you gotta do it from the inside. And if you cringe at the idea of Obama stepping into the muck and mire of post-Atwater poltics, then ask yourself: will he get more done by keeping his shoes clean and losing?

[...]Stay angry. Again: The McCain campaign just said that Barack Obama wants to teach 6 year-olds how to fuck. That deserves a little more of a response than it's "perverse" or whatever shit the Obama campaign just put out.

[...] In other words, Obama campaign, as so many others have advised, go on offense, and that means you have to offend.

Tell It To Her, Scott

When I saw this picture today, accompanying a completely unrelated story, I just about lost my shit. Appallingly, I've seen worse photos before, but this one struck me today and made me think immediately about the ongoing "book tour of redemption" by Scott McClellan.

Much has been written in the last day about the "tell-all" memoir by the former White House professional liar. I don't have much to say beyond "Fuck him. I hope he rots in Hell."

I could alternate several other words between the stream of obscenities that would flow from my fingers, but it pretty much boils down to this: Scott McClellan, you stood before the country and knowingly told lies on behalf of The Worst Administration Ever. On every possible topic. Untold thousands died as a result. And you did nothing to stop it. You are a coward of the first order and the fact that you admit this now, only in order to make a buck off it, repulses me even more.

Many writers have referenced the death of American troops and the debt McClellan owes them and their families—don't get me wrong, he is an accessory in every one of their deaths—but they are soldiers...This innocent little girl and thousands like her, never enlisted for what you helped unleash upon them.

Scott McClellan, take a good look at that child and realize that you personally helped put every single one of those sutures in her face.

Your punishment should be a tour as an IED scout in Iraq. Not so you can die, but so you can shit your pants every fucking day that you might. All the while I hope that girl's horribly mangled face haunts you every single night. And when you make it through your tour in Iraq, you return home only to be crushed to death by a palette of your unsold books.

[photo from The Atlantic, by Ahmad al Rubaye/AFP/Getty]

This (No Longer) American Life

I caught part of this episode of "This American Life" a couple weeks ago and was pretty much left deciding whether to drive straight to Canada or to D.C. and crash my car into the West Wing...

I went online and listened to the whole thing. As Ira Glass says in the intro, the abuses of the Bush Adminisration are, by this point, legion. Huge, blatant disregard for laws and the Constitution with massive implications. So TAL decided to focus on two personal, below-the-radar stories of abuse of power that are no less egregious—and in their own way, twice as infuriating.

Listen to The Audacity of Government.

Huckabee "Heartbroken"

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- [link] Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee said it was "heartbreaking" that the deaths of women killed by a convicted rapist who was released from prison after Huckabee supported his parole had become politicized.

..."There are families who are truly, understandably and reasonably, grief stricken," Huckabee told CNN. "And for people to now politicize these deaths and to try to make a political case out of it rather than to simply understand that a system failed and that we ought to extend our grief and heartfelt sorrow to these families, I just regret politics is reduced to that."

Yeah, you sound "heartbroken"...that this is an issue. Here's your cup, Mike. Drink it down.



Let's make things clear. This is politicized now because you responded to the mouth-breathing, Clenis-fearing, rightwing asshats when you were Governor and pushed for the release of a convicted rapist for purely political reasons!

In the same breath you claim "not to have pressured" the parole board, you mention that you were considering "granting DuMond clemency in 1996, but he dropped the idea in response to public outcry."

To cover your ass against that "public outcry" and in defiance of the letters you recieved pleading that DuMond remain in prison, you held a controversial closed-door, no-transcript session with the Parole Board, and within weeks he was on the street. What and who are we supposed to believe here? The board members who say you pressured them, and threatened to outright commute DuMond if he wasn't paroled or you and your political handlers. That his parole stipulated he leave Arkansas (convenient for you) but both Florida and Georgia refused to accept him, and he ended up in Missouri? That's how "concerned" you were with his supervsion?

You fucked up, Mike. Big time. And people lost their lives because of it. And it was for a disgraceful reason—political payback. So don't you dare moan about politics now. Right after you're done shutting the fuck up you can rot in Hell right next to your buddy DuMond.

Dick of the Week: Jerry Bowyer

Is it too early to commit on Dick of the Week? Perhaps, unless somebody else comes to pry it from Jerry Bowyer's fat, stupid, lying conservative hands...

The California Fires: Where were the Looters?
by Jerry Bowyer | Posted: 11/01/2007
Did you see any looters on television last week? Neither did I. When New Orleans was flooded two years ago, there were looters all over my TV screen...

What about the rapists? There were rapists at the refugee camp formerly known as the Superdome, but did you see any reports about rapists at Qualcomm Stadium last week? I didn’t. Did the mayor of San Diego cuss and then lash out at George Bush on your TV screen last week? Did Governor Schwarzenegger cry for the cameras? Did he pass the buck?

San Diego had a major fire just four years ago. Did they wallow in their victimhood and demand more government funding? Did they play the race card, claiming that George Bush just doesn’t like Mexicans?

Where to begin? Let's first look at just the geographic and type-of-catastrophe differences: San Diego is a huge spawling region with dozens of lanes of interstate highway going in and out in all directions, plus local and secondary roads, and few natural obstacles.

New Orleans is an old city built in a bowl at the end of a peninsula surounded by water with very few ways out.

Hurricanes are massive catastrophic forces that hit all at once and disrupt/destroy hundreds of square miles simultaneously with a combination of deadly wind, rain and flooding.

Wildfires, by definition, start in uninhabited areas, spread locally and more slowly, and can be more easily avoided. Evacuations can be handled on an individual neighborhood level, rather than an entire metropolitan area at once.

Katrina is widely recognized as the worst disaster in U.S. History. This years wildfires, while tragic, are a frequent occurance in an area familiar with dealing with them. The fires in 2003 were worse. Mr. Genius continues...

The answer to all these questions is ‘no’. Here’s why: culture matters. San Diego is an entrepreneurial city. It’s a technology savvy, business-friendly region with unusually high rates of self-employment. Few of its citizens are unemployed; few receive welfare. Not many of its employed residents work for government. San Diego has seen its share of troubles. Like Pittsburgh had been a steel town and Detroit had been a car town, San Diego had been built on the defense industry. But when the Berlin wall came down and the defense budgets dried up, it shifted towards the next big thing – biotechnology. These changes have come from the bottom-up; from the marketplace.

San Diego sure has pretty beaches, and palm trees, and more laptops per capita, I'm sure—but Jerry's grand socio-ecomomic assertions are total bullshit...

Unemployment rates:
San Diego—4.6% (January 2005)
New Orleans—5.0% (December 2004)

Largest Employers:
San Diego—Government (18%)
New Orleans—Government (17%)

Oh, and any of the rest of you recall "defense budgets drying up"? I didn't think so. Anything else, Jerry?

I wonder if a reverse 911 evacuation call like the one that went out to a million San Diegans would have even worked in New Orleans.

Um, no. Because everyone in New Orleans was told to leave at once, too late, and with no way to do so. Plus, they had to flee the entire region. In San Diego, things went a bit differently:

Residents were subjected to a mix of mandatory and voluntary evacuations, depending on their location in the projected path of the fire. Voluntary evacuation areas were typically further from the fire's path, while mandatory evacuation areas faced a more imminent threat...

Many residents were notified of evacuations via a computerized Reverse 911 phone call system. Law enforcement officers also notified residents by driving through evacuation areas.

The 513,000 people notified by Reverse 911 is not actually "a million" and the system only existed a month before the fires... Oh, and all of that helpful stuff done in San Diego? It was the government, and it was implemented in large part in response to what went wrong in New Orleans.

And the Superdome versus Qualcomm comparison? Hmmm. Did the people in San Diego wade through sewage and corpse-ridden water to get to a ill-equipped, ill-supplied refugee camp where they were left trapped, in some cases forced at gunpoint, without food, water, electricity or sanitary conditions? While a hurricane ripped the roof off?

Or did San Diegans calmly drive in their cars, park in a parking lot and check into an overstaffed, well-prepared camping ground with 70 degree weather?

He concludes with one of the wierdest amalgams of red herring and straw man meets hypothetical I've ever read [emphasis mine]...

I’m already bracing myself for the hate mail. “YOU’RE BLAMING THE VICTIMS!” they will blare. But I’m not blaming them, I’m trying to help them. Poverty stinks to begin with, but it’s even worse when a hurricane or an earthquake attacks. If I told you that today you were going to be hit with a natural disaster, but that you got the pick the city where your family would be when it hit, would you pick a rich one or a poor one? Would you pick one with honest and efficient road construction agencies or patronage ridden ones? Would you pick a town where almost everyone had Blackberries and cell-phones or where almost no one did? Would you pick a town were most people were business owners or where most of them were on welfare?

Too bad nobody told the poor, car-less inhabitants of New Orleans they could have chosen to be in a fantastic city where they'd have flying cars and two-way wrist-tvs instead of trapped in a fucking swamp.

Whose blaming the victims? Not Jerry.

Dick of the Week: Michelle Malkin

Yes, the age-old question answered...the D.O.W. can be a woman.

Intrepid investigative reporter Michelle Malkin is doing her best to defend America from the fraudulent propaganda forced into our pinned-open eyelids by the omnipotent Democrat Party and their Army of Twelve Year Old Stormtroopers! Leaving no stone unturned no dark alley uninspected Malkin exposes the lies and deception...

Oh, you mean she just uses her highly trafficked right-wing bully pulpit website and tv appearences to make baseless smears and charges against a 12 year old boy and his family because they dared speak up about SCHIP? That's the right-wing merchant of bullshit we all know and loathe.

Apparently while I've been too busy to post about anything but baseball, this has been a real hot topic...Well, there's no more baseball for a few days, and this the big, fat, hanging curveball I need to get my fury swing back in shape.

It seems the Democrats had a twelve year old boy make the response to Bush's radio address a week or two ago, and he told the story of his family's struggles with health insurance and experience with SCHIP. You know, the thing President Compassionate Conservative vetoed..."I don't know why President Bush wants to stop kids who really need help from getting CHIP," young Graeme Frost said, referring to the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP).

Always eager to please the Dark Lords of the GOP Sith, Malkin and her ilk jumped at the chance to savage these perfectly ordinary American citizens in the public arena, claiming (like Karl Rove) that they are "fair game." That's right, opening your mouth in a free society opens you up to personal destruction. I hope this wench was careless enough to tread across the line into slander and libel territory.

Here's Malkin:

Update 2:50pm Eastern: I just returned from a visit to Frost’s commercial property near Patterson Park in Baltimore. It’s a modest place. Talked to one of the tenants, Mike Reilly, who is a talented welder. He said he had known the Frosts for 10 years. Business is good, he told me, though he characterized Frost as “struggling.”

[...] I also passed by the Frosts’ rowhouse. There was an “01-20-09″ bumper sticker plastered on the door and a newer model GMC Suburban parked directly in front of the house. I’ve seen guesstimates of the house’s worth in the $400,000-plus range.

Bet you didn't know Michelle's a real estate appraiser in her spare time... She "guesstimates" the house is worth over $400,000? Even if the house IS worth that much, my first question was, "When did this family buy it? What did they pay?" Did MM ponder this as well? Of course—she's not stupid, just dishonest. Better to make it sound like these Frost characters are living high on the hog in a half-million dollar "remodeled" brownstone. USA Today checked:

Bloggers said the house was worth more than $400,000. It turns out it was bought for $55,000 in 1991 in a Baltimore neighborhood where "there were drug dealers and prostitutes on our street," Bonnie Frost said. Halsey Frost, a woodworker, did most of the renovations, which are "still not done," Bonnie said.

Oh, and a carpenter who drives a truck? The audacity!

Next up? Go after the kids' school—here's Malkin:

The family is not as destitute as the MSM has made them out to be. FreeRepublic member icwhatudo (oh, so clever!) asks the tough questions the mainstream media won’t ask. Like why a “working family” in need of government-subsidized health care can afford to send two children to a $20,000-a-year-private school.

She then blockquotes "icurfullofshit":

…One has to wonder that if time and money can be found to remodel a home, send kids to exclusive private schools, purchase commercial property and run your own business… maybe money can be found for other things…maybe Dad should drop his woodworking hobby and get a real job that offers health insurance..."

Hoo boy, I'm not done with that motherfucker yet...but here's USAT on the school part:

Bloggers said Graeme and Gemma go to private Park School, where tuition costs about $20,000. Graeme gets a scholarship, while Gemma's brain injuries were so severe that the city pays to educate her at a school for children with disabilities.

Did I forget to mention that the thing that sent this family into a medical bill death spiral and put them on SCHIP was a terrible car accident? No matter, the brownshirts show no mercy.

Back to the Freeper asshat, icwhatudo: "...if time and money can be found to remodel a home"—This family home was a dump they bought sixteen fucking years ago when that part of Baltimore was a slum, and he fixed it up himself—let me state first-hand, this is not always laying around in hammock with a beer while paint dries—working on your house can really be hard and time-consuming, and I do it because I can't pay somebody else to. (I have a screen door in my garage that I primed in May that have yet to paint and re-hang—perhaps it'll be ready by the time screen season rolls around again. What's my problem? I have just two kids and none of them have severe disabilities.)

And this crap about him "running his own business"... As if this guy is some kind of tycoon or George "Arbusto" Bush running an oil business into the ground on the Saudi's dime. "Owning a business" more often equals a constant struggle than unbridaled wealth, morons.

I "own my own business."—guess that makes me "a CEO" in the eyes of a frothing pundit. At a certain point, paying for health insurance for my family became too expensive for me and my "business" to support. So, I got a day job, one I am vastly overqualified, and underpaid for, but it has great benefits. Here's the problem—it took me over a year to get it. And I didn't have a couple of my kids in the Brain Injury Clinic. And that job on its own does NOT pay our normal bills, so I still dabble with my "hobby" at night to make ends meet. This can be tough, and perhaps not a viable option for this family. Something that loudmouths in the world of subsidized opinon-spewing probably can't really relate to.

Malkin goes on to criticize the Maryland SCHIP program as lax for "not impos(ing) an asset test on applicants." But Maryland DOES means test, and the Frosts are well within range:

[USAT] The couple — who have four children in all —earned about $45,000 last year, well below the $55,220 limit for a family of six set under the original SCHIP program...

The original program. Yes, these thieving Frosts aren't even one of the new "too rich for a hand-out" families Bush likes to dishonestly use as pretext for his veto. But Michelle and others on the right think they should have to sell their home to meet an assets test even though it would destroy the family's future?

--

All of that said, I'm not sure I completely support the Dem's strategy here, and I do not think that there should be total insulation from any kind of scrutiny if you offer yourself up for a publicity stunt like this. But it was quickly clear this family met the requirements for the program, and found themselves even in that position only due to tragic events, and they should have been left alone at that point. They are now pawns caught in the middle of two forces much bigger than them, who are really more interested in advancing agendas than them or their particular needs, and that's the sad part.

Can we please just quit this fucking dance and get on with National Healthcare already?

MORE: Digby, Ezra, Firedoglake, John Cole. Cole follow-up

UPDATE: One of the other assholes Malkin quotes in her screed claims the Frosts could get health insurance if they really wanted it:

A check of a quote engine for zip code 21250 (Baltimore) finds a plan for $641 with a $0 deductible and $20 doc copays.

First of all, I find that almost impossible to believe. When we paid for our own insurance four years ago, it was more than that for any decent plan, and the only way we got under that amount was to decline maternity coverage—which (gasp) meant we couldn't have the baby if Mrs. F got pregnant. Probably not a position the right wing wants to support.

Also left out of this guy's "analysis" is the fact that this family has pre-existing conditions no insurer would want to touch. My daughter would put us in the same situation. IF we didn't have good insurance her medical issues over the last two years would likely have bankrupted us. And if I needed to to purchase my own insurance now her conditions would jack the rates through the roof.

Medical conditions are often genetic (bad) luck of the draw, and exactly the kind of thing a civilized society shares the burden of—not tosses to the gutter. There is no way I could have "budgeted" for the tests and procedures my daughter went through, and if they had happened while I was dependant solely on "my business" it would have ruined us. This is exactly what happens to families all over the country—medical bills are the largest cause of personal bankruptcies. And the Republican Congress in it's infinite "compassion" made sure it was even more difficult to declare bankruptcy a few years back.

I am at a berserker rage level of hatred and anger right about now.