Posted by
shipwreck on Tuesday, August 18, 2009 12:00:00 AM
I was just watching Kirsten Powers (FNC's resident Democrat apologist) and a former Bush assistant press secretary discussing the health care legislation. While I've seen and heard it ad nauseum from numerous different sources, in or on several different media, I was struck by a certain worthless and foolish non-argument being made by Powers in response to a comment made by her opposite. He was supporting a suggestion by a Florida congressman that the present bill, s.r. 3200, should be scrapped and that the parties should start from scratch with a meaningful bipartisan debate to craft a statute more generally acceptable. Whereupon, Kirsten commenced talking over him and sarcastically saying much to the effect of -- how could any worthwhile debate be had if you're going to talk about "death panels." And she kept on this like a broken record -- clearly striving to simply drown out her opposite and foreclose any further discussion. That was a perfect example of why we, as a people generally, are getting no closer together, growing further apart, hardening our positions, becoming less tolerant of others points of view, and becoming more willing to more quickly dimiss others with whom we do not agree. Conservatives don't suffer fools gladly.
"Death panels" had not been mentioned, and, in fact, that section is being deleted by popular demand. So it was a moot point that added nothing to the discussion. So many of these liberal pundits speak and express thoughts that are totally irrelevant to the issue under discussion, waste a great deal of valuable air time, and are counterproductive. Not only are they counterproductive to a resolution of the core issue, but they are counterproductive to even conducting a discourse. "There is no point in having a debate because I am going to object to my opponent's categorization of end of life counselling as 'death panels' even if he never mentions them."
The retorts of Democrat pundits are predictable. Confronted with any contemporaneious misstep by a democrat or a liberal, the response begins with "how is that any different from Bush killing babies and puppies....... Haliburton overcharging....Blackwater killing......Foley pursuing......," or any other untruthful, irrelevant, immaterial, or inconsequential historical event. They have mastered the subterfuges of evasion and obfuscation. Whenever I watch them, I think of computerized customer service: "if you don't believe 1, press 2 for additional choices, 3 for "he's lying," 4 for "all the polls indicate," 5 for "his plan will simply waste ------- and pander to ------- vested interests ------- lobbyists------ and street walkers," 6 "destroy the job market/economy/health/culture/environment," 7 "open the floodgates," or 8 "have a chilling effect upon."
A perfect example is Hillary's remarks to an African audience. They were so predictable and quintessentially Democrat: (paraphrasing) 'Our elections are not always perfect either. Take the election of 2,000 for example. It came down to one state and the election was lost. The winner's brother was the governor of that state. [Raise eyebrows, blink, wink and wiggle]'. Never mind that her remark, if inferred as intended, would discredit the integrity of our elections and the American political system, it would also portray a republican governor as an election fraud and so it was well worth it.
I had hoped that when the Democrats swept the federal elections, they would finally stop whining and turn to trumpeting their wonderful promised accomplishments. I mean after all, for eight long years they had been planning for this triumph. They knew every fault of a bad government. They had kept book on President Bush and minutely detailed, micrographed, photographed, and lithographed every real and imaged mistake. They had in this eight year hiatus perfected their already vast knowledge of all things political, economical and governmental and accumulated even more knowledge and perfected a diplomacy of reconciliation and appeasement that had no historical equal. Moreover, they had acquired a mastery of banking and investment banking, auto manufacturing, and health insurance Of course, its hard to trumpet a four fold increase in the national debt, a 25% increase in unemployment, an additional 25,000 young men at risk in Afghanistan, and a swine flu epidemic. So, after a two month respite, they're back on the defense and whining about the unpatriotic Astroturf americans who aren't buying their lemons.
In Kirsten's defense, I will say that she had been put in a tough spot by Katherine (?) Sibelius who was stating that nowwithstanding what she said yesterday about the abandonment of the "government option," it had not been abandoned, and even though she voted for it before she voted against it, she's now voting for it again.
I think that if I were Kirsten, I would take two aspirin and consider another line of work.