Even conservative columnists are getting sick of GOP lies
Steve Benen at Political Animal:
The Washington Post‘s Ruth Marcus explained in her new column that she’s "not a huge fan" of the House health care bill — she didn’t say why, exactly — but the columnist ended up cheering for the legislation anyway. Apparently, Marcus heard an "appalling amount of misinformation being peddled" by Republicans, and grew disgusted.
I don’t mean the usual hyperbole about "a children-bankrupting, health-care-rationing, freedom-crushing, $1 trillion government takeover of our health-care system," as Texas Republican Jeb Hensarling put it. Or the tired canards about taxpayer-funded abortion or insurance subsidies for illegal immigrants. Or the extraneous claims about alleged Democratic excesses….
I mean the flood of sheer factual misstatements about the health-care bill.
Marcus proceeds to document all kinds of lies from a variety of GOP lawmakers. There were obvious falsehoods about Medicare, taxes, Comparative Effectiveness Research, jobs, and the public option. It was as dishonest a display as one will ever see from one party in one day.
You have to wonder: Are the Republican arguments against the bill so weak that they have to resort to these misrepresentations and distortions?
Good question. When you take an intellectually unserious caucus, add dashes of panic and paranoia, and throw in a healthy dose of ignorance, you end up with a group of people who can’t help but lie — they have nothing else of value to say.
Marcus’ column was especially impressive for resisting the urge most of the media establishment gives into: trying to pretend "both sides" are equally bad. It’s lazy but common, and Marcus, to her credit, called it like she saw it. There was no need to put a pox on both houses, when only one had earned it.
House Republicans spent the entire debate shamelessly lying. Here’s wishing other media figures were as willing as Marcus to say so.
Some of those GOP followers seem to be a constituency who just swallow any and all confirmation bias.
‘Obama is a monster.’ Then the nod that; ‘I thought so, and on top of that, must be true since being spoken by one of our lawmakers. They can’t just make things up.’
If only the general public would put health before, you only get it if you can afford it. Doesn’t seem hard to comprehend, but neither are scare tactics. Those work with enough ignorance in place.
Seems as you suggest; if the arguments are weak, the (often unverifiable “facts”) accusations must be ramped up.
Thanks for a good one!
benafia
19 November 2009 at 6:16 pm
*I’m* getting sick of Republican lies. I have never seen such a concentrated, nonstop effort to deceive everyone in America. The flood of lies is so thick that it’s like being brainwashed. The weak responses from the Democrat Party don’t help either. It’s becoming too easy for average Americans to be brainwashed and believe whatever the Republican Party dishes out. Is this our future, rule by the ruthless?
knowerseeker
15 January 2010 at 3:27 pm
Unfortunately, I believe that rule by the ruthless has been common throughout human history, including today if you look at the nations of the world. The US has escaped it for years, but it may be becoming our turn.
I agree with you that the Democrat politicians of today are for the most part craven and unwilling to do their part in educating the public about the facts. And the media seems on the whole to have absented itself from serious investigation and reportage,probably due to the demands of their corporate owners.
LeisureGuy
15 January 2010 at 3:46 pm
Yes, LeisureGuy, that’s another concern of mine: How can we learn truth today if the news media are not reporting it? (Supposedly one used to be able to rely on most professional sources of news in America. I remember all the talk in school and college about news reporters being held to a high standard of truth and being proud of it.) I don’t like the way things are headed at all.
knowerseeker
19 January 2010 at 8:37 am
Not only the news, but now school textbooks are being shaped by the conservative Texas textbook review commission. Check out this report.
The news problem seems to be the result of the increasing corporate involvement in the newsroom, shaping news to the corporations’ interests, and corporations are generally quite conservative in their politics.
LeisureGuy
19 January 2010 at 9:34 am
I just read that report. I have to admit that I’m not familiar with all of the issues discussed within it, and I probably won’t have the time to research them thoroughly, but I know enough to see that the conservatives are trying to make revisionist changes to Texas high school history books that will whitewash past wrongs and give undue praise to conservative politicians. Isn’t history revision something that every major totalitarianist regime has done, including nazi and communist governments?
knowerseeker
19 January 2010 at 1:30 pm