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| 2010-03-23 |
| Oppose ObamaCare? You must be racist. That's the not-so-subtle message emerging from the wash-up of this week's healthcare vote. Not surprisingly, the New York Times is among the loudest dog-whistlers of this tune, running an article explicitly linking the fight to spend a trillion dollars to insure thirty million Americans to the fight to achieve civil rights for all. Opponents of the bill - 59 % of the American people according to one CNN poll - are no better than Bull Connor, or so goes the implication. Don't believe me? Check out the latest from Paul Krugman, who in his latest health care column claimed that Newt Gingrich compared Barack Obama's signing of health "reform" to LBJ's signing of civil rights legislation, saying they were both cosmic errors: And on the other side, here's what Newt Gingrich, the Republican former speaker of the House — a man celebrated by many in his party as an intellectual leader — had to say: If Democrats pass health reform, “They will have destroyed their party much as Lyndon Johnson shattered the Democratic Party for 40 years' by passing civil rights legislation. Only, of course, it wasn't true. Check out the correction sheepishly appended to Krugman's column: Editor's Note: This column quotes Newt Gingrich as saying that "Lyndon Johnson shattered the Democratic Party for 40 years" by passing civil rights legislation, a quotation that originally appeared in the Washington Post. After this column was printed, The Post reported that Mr Gingrich said that his comment referred to Johnson's Great Society programs, not the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Oh, well, I guess that's OK then. I'm not sure which is worse: that no one at the Washington Post thought the original, erroneous, and defamatory quote might require a double check, or that Krugman didn't smell a rat and check it himself. Either way, it suggests a lot about the mentality of those in the media and how they will likely deal with their opponents on the Right in the months leading up to November. It's funny, just as Tom Wolfe famously quipped that fascism always seems to be descending on America but landing on Europe, those who claim their opponents' tactics are based largely on fear-mongering seem to do plenty to whip up fear themselves. |
| Posted by:tipper |
| #3 Krugman didn't smell a rat and check it himself notice that most smelly animals/individuals adapt to their own smell and rarely notice it unless particularly pungent....which doesn't let this weasel off here, I guess |
| Posted by: Frank G 2010-03-23 19:10 |
| #2 I think he knew about the correction and is simply using it as 'cover' so he can make such a claim. |
| Posted by: CrazyFool 2010-03-23 14:46 |
| #1 "or that Krugman didn't smell a rat and check it himself" You MUST be joking. |
| Posted by: Barbara Skolaut 2010-03-23 13:43 |