Times' Joe Klein: Lower Than Dirt

[flpoljunkie]

(This letter and the video linked in the letter were promulgated by the Independent Women's Forum. We all know how 'independent' of the Republican party they are. Kudos to Joe Klein for calling them out on this despicable, fear mongering lie. Fox News is giving them a forum, of course.)

Swampland
Lower Than Dirt

Posted by JOE KLEIN Tuesday, August 25, 2009 at 5:55 pm

The New York Times ran a front-page story today about a quiet man who drove a long distance with his wife to attend a town meeting in Georgia hosted by his Congressman Sanford Bishop. The guy was there because his wife has breast cancer and he's worried that the Obama health care plan will force rationing, which will decrease her chance of staying alive.

Now, the story was a bit of a phony. The fellow in question admitted to receiving most of his news from Fox, Rush and Drudge--which means that he never experiences actual news, at all. But still, you wonder where he got such a bizarre notion about Obama's health care intentions--especially since any plan that passes will dramatically improve breast cancer treatment for a great many women, especially those currently without insurance, since it emphasizes preventive care.

Well, the answer came this afternoon in a despicable fund-raising letter that a friend passed along. Here's how it begins:

More American women are going to die of breast cancer if you and I surrender to President Obama's nationalized healthcare onslaught.

It's as simple as that.

You see, over the past 30 years our nation's doctors and self-responsible citizens actually drove the mortality rate from breast cancer down 25%.

That's at least 300,000 more women who are alive today because America's healthcare system works better than government-run systems. And that's at least 300,000 women who, facing cancer in the future, are likely to suffer under nationalized healthcare.

Why? Because nationalized healthcare does not let doctors and their patients decide what's best. Because nationalized healthcare means fewer treatment options.

And because, at the end of the day, you and I are much more likely to do all it takes to keep ourselves alive than some faceless government bureaucrat.

And so on. Needless to say, there is no plan to nationalize or socialize health care. This letter, therefore, is a disgraceful scam, intended to scare the living hell out of already frightened and militantly uninformed people--Fox News viewers who think the sky is falling because a Muslim-Socialist-furriner is in the White House. I'd like to see the leaders of the Republican Party disown this poisonous swill. But they won't--because the real leaders of the Republican Party (Fox, Rush and Drudge) are spreading it.

http://swampland.blogs.time.com/2009/08/25/lower-than-dirt/#more-15590

[Cha]

1. Gawd Damn the Liars and the idiots who

buy their Shit.

[depakid]

2. Culture of lies

Perhaps the biggest single difference between America and every other western nation (and a ton of 3rd world nations- which is what America's going to be not long down the line if it fails to deal with its ingrained dishonesty).

[Laelth]

3. Our 1st Amendment protects lies.

It is especially protective of political lies, just like the ones cited in Klein's essay. It is that, our 1st Amendment, which makes us unique. To my knowledge, no country on Earth protects speech with the same vigor as the United States.

This is one of our greatest strengths, and one of our greatest weaknesses. We can't really pass effective campaign finance reform, for example, because the Supreme Court has ruled that money is speech, and for this reason, those with more money get a lot more "speech" and can buy our politicians.

:dem:

-Laelth

[depakid]

4. American exceptionalism

Will be America's undoing.

[flpoljunkie]

5. As well as our feckless corporate media who pretty much refuse to call out their lies.

[Berry Cool]

6. Maybe you should rephrase this header. I misunderstood it to mean you were saying

that Joe Klein himself is "lower than dirt." Now that I read it, I can see you're saying that "Lower Than Dirt" is what he's calling the tactic he uncovers here.

Edited to add: Did you see who is behind this crap? Michelle Bernard, favorite Tweety guest on Hardball. Miserable wretch. I'll never listen to a damn thing her piehole says again.

[Jane Austin]

7. "Did you see who is behind this crap? Michelle Bernard, "

We all know she comes from the right, but is her husband impartial about health-care reform?

She's married to Joe Johns of CNN.