If you've been paying attention this week, you're probably aware many opposed to health care reform (HCR) have come a little unhinged since its passage. Multiple death threats have been reported by multiple Members of Congress, and even Bible Spice has gotten into the act, posting on her Facebook page what only can be considered a hit list.
This behavior is clearly over the top. It's also what one would expect after months of being whipped into a frenzy by Rethuglican lies disseminated by Faux News and other "news" outlets. The HCR debate and its immediate aftermath are, in my mind, the best recent examples of the extreme damage to this country being done by traditional media, which refuses to characterize a lie as a lie but insists on simply reporting what each side of a debate says, without doing even elemental reporting on whether the stated claims are true. But I digress.
This week's prize for best lead role in opportunistic drama must go to Rep. Eric Cantor (R, of course), House Minority Whip, for his self-serving press conference yesterday wherein he shouted "me too," and pointed to an incident in which the building housing his Richmond, Va., district office was hit by what police say was a stray bullet. The bullet, police believe, was randomly fired into the air and by chance struck the building's window. It had enough energy to break the glass but not penetrate the window blinds. Some attack, that. This event apparently occurred around 0100 Tuesday morning.
Cantor's a whiney little fuck, perfectly suited for a leadership role among House Rethuglicans. But his presser was designed to deflect what was a growing meme throughout the mainstream media that Democrats and Democrats alone were being targeted by the Rethuglican's extra-chromosome wing. Whether it worked or not remains to be seen -- I'm agnostic at this point.
But as an exercise in disinformation, it was a masterpiece. I can't even begin to compete with Billmon's treatment at GOS; just go read it.
How can you tell when a Rethuglican is lying? The lips are moving.
(h/t Anne Laurie)
0 comments:
Post a Comment