Recently in Republican Fitna Category

UPDATE: transcript of President Obama's prepared remarks now available.

This video is from 1992, right before the election. That wasn't President Bush Sr.'s only address to schoolchildren, either - a few years earlier, he also made a 15-minute appeal to kids that saying no to drugs "won't make you a nerd."

Calling Obama's plan for a televised address to schoolchildren "an indoctrination into socialism" is akin to labeling the video up above of Bush Sr "an indoctrination into fascism". Since the speech is entirely voluntary on the part of each school, there's no coercive element to this whatsoever.

Those ODS-afflicted parents who insist on keeping their kids home from school that day are welcome to do so. Their kids will miss out on a day's education, be taught to perpetuate the atmosphere of political hatred, and view the Office of the Presidency with disrespect. That is perfectly within their right - but let's not mince words, it is they who are indoctrinating their children, not Obama.

Perhaps ODS is an insufficient term here. I think Obamaphobia might be more apt.

Incidentally, Team Obama has a sense of humor, acknowledging that kids might not be that interested in what a dumb ol' boring politician has to say, so they recruited someone rather more interesting people to help him out:

Related: good coverage of the Obama school controversy from The Christian Science Monitor, Politico, and an editorial in the St Petersburg Times, brilliantly titled "Danger! Obama talks" which notes, "this is not a partisan issue. This is about civic engagement and respect for the presidency."

...in that it is being hijacked by extremists who are not representative of the mainstream, but who inexplicably seem to be in control of the PR department.

For better or worse - this is what the face of conservatism today looks like:

The evident self-refuting nature of this does conservatism a grave injustice. I will not accept it, but the majority of Americans who see this certainly will. Without both conservatism and liberalism, as healthy and honest political ideologies in balance and opposition, this nation is doomed. As Bill Clinton once said,

"America has two great dominant strands of political thought - conservatism, which, at its very best, draws lines that should not be crossed; and progressivism, which, at its very best, breaks down barriers that should never have been erected."

I'm a liberal but i grieve for what is happening to conservatism in the Obama era - an entirely self-inflicted wound.

(via Rod, who has been chronicling the decline of Conservatism for some time now)

This press release by the AARP, in response to ongoing Republican mischaracterizations and fear-mongering about health reform, particularly a recent diatribe by RNC Chairman Michael Steele, is a masterpiece of snarky fact-checking. See below for the full text, with the particularly relevant juicy bits bolded by myself for your enjoyment:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
August 24, 2009

Contact
AARP Media Relations
media@aarp.org

AARP Glad to Have GOP on the Side of Older Americans

WASHINGTON-AARP Executive Vice President John Rother issued the following statement in response to the Republican National Committee's proposal for a "Seniors' Health Care Bill of Rights."

"AARP agrees with Chairman Michael Steele's goals for reforming our health care system, and we are pleased nothing in the bills that have been proposed would bring about the scenarios the RNC is concerned about. Older Americans should not be unfairly burdened by the costs of fixing our broken health care system. Medicare should not be cut arbitrarily to fund health care reforms that do nothing to help older Americans. And no one-whether a government bureaucrat or a private health insurer-should come between you and your doctor when making important health care decisions.

"That's why we're supporting provisions in the health care bills that would improve Medicare benefits, including closing the prescription drug program's dreaded doughnut hole-a gap in coverage that forces millions of older Americans to pay the full cost of their prescription drugs on top of their monthly premiums. Other smart provisions would add needed preventive benefits to Medicare so older Americans can get the screenings and tests they need without worrying about costly bills. We also support plans to increase pay for doctors with Medicare patients and encourage medical students to go into primary care so that everyone in Medicare can continue to see their own doctor.

"We can pay for these improvements without adding to our deficit by rooting out the waste, fraud and abuse that are driving up older Americans' Medicare premiums and other health care bills. That means cutting subsidies for private insurers, rewarding hospitals and doctors for providing follow-up care to prevent unnecessary readmissions to the hospital and lowering the skyrocketing costs of prescription drugs that are straining the federal budget and our own wallets.

"AARP will not support a health care bill that cuts Medicare benefits or puts bureaucracy between you and your doctor. We're glad to have Chairman Steele and his colleagues voice their support for older Americans and we look forward to their support of health care legislation that improves the health care system for Americans of all ages."

via Kevin Drum, who nicely summarizes Steele's argument. Incidentally, the same Republican tactics of obstruction and political opportunism are also the reason why smart solutions for reducing the national debt probably won't even be put on the table; economic recovery proposals from President Obama are going to get the same knee-jerk reaction as the health reform proposals did, even though in both cases the Administration is bending backwards to try and offer ideological compromise and pragmatic solutions in the name of bipartisanship.

This is just laughable - the right-wing World Net Daily, which boasts of "over 200 exclusive reports on the eligibility issue", has issued a breathless report that Obama's actual year of birth was 1957, not 1961 as was previously thought - based on a typo on the President's MySpace page. They breathlessly point out that Hawai'i was not a state in 1957, just a territory. Of course the implication is that Obama's claim to citizenship is somehow invalidated by this - but as they surely were too thick to realize, being born in a US territory still confers citizenship rights (See: the 14th Amendment and this summary as pertains to Territories). So in a sense they are now admitting that Obama is actually a citizen, if they are going to claim that he was born in Hawai'i in 1957. Of course as far as Birther logic goes, this is irrelevant - all that matters if OMG OBAMA LIED MUSLIM MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE!

It pains me to disagree with Daniel, but I still see no evidence that this silliness is the product of merely hyper-nationalistic Americanism. This is Obama Derangement Syndrome, and it's racism, and it's the muslim smear v3.6b. To reject racism as a primary motivating factor in all this is to lend far more credibility to their reasoning abilities than they deserve.

UPDATE: As previously noted, the Birther meme is strongest among Republicans in the South. Since this latest Birther nonsense hinges upon the (irrelevant) status of Hawai'i as a state or a territory, it's worth pointing out that there's considirable confusion among Southern Republicans as the existence of Hawai'i, let alone it's status. Last week, Rachel Maddow highlighted a poll about Birther attitudes which had a brilliant follow-up qestion to that effect:

Among Republicans in North Carolina-it's worse. The percentage of Republican voters in North Carolina who say Barack Obama was not born in the U.S. or they're not sure, 76 percent. More than three-quarters of North Carolina Republicans think Obama might not really be president-more than three-quarters, more than three-quarters, more than three-quarters of them.

But here's the additional detail that might make your raised eyebrows turn into a furrowed brow. This huge majority of North Carolina Republicans say that Obama either wasn't born in the U.S. or they're not sure, right? The president, of course, was born in Hawaii. Well, whoever the genius is who put this poll together-I salute you because I never would have thought to ask this as the follow-up question-by the way, do you believe that Hawaii is part of the United States? They asked that question. And fully 12 percent of North Carolina self-identified conservatives said no, Hawaii is not part of the United States. Or they just don't know whether it is.I mean, how could that ever be known?

Palin still insists that death panels are a reality:

Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin refused to retreat from her debunked claim that a proposed health care overhaul would create "death panels," as the growing furor over end-of-life consultations forced a key group of senators to abandon the idea in their bill.

Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, one of six lawmakers negotiating on a Senate bill, said Thursday they had dropped end-of-life provisions from consideration "entirely because of the way they could be misinterpreted and implemented incorrectly."

In a Facebook posting titled "Concerning Death Panels," Palin argued Wednesday night that the elderly and ailing would be coerced into accepting minimal end-of-life care to reduce health care costs based on the Democratic bill in the House.

But there will be no "death panels" under the legislation being considered. In fact, the provision in the bill would allow Medicare to pay doctors for voluntary counseling sessions that address end-of-life issues. The conversations between doctor and patient would include living wills, making a close relative or a trusted friend your health care proxy, learning about hospice as an option for the terminally ill, and information about pain medications for people suffering chronic discomfort.

The sessions would be covered every five years, more frequently if someone is gravely ill.

The American Medical Association and the National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization support the provision.
In her posting, Palin wrote: "With all due respect, it's misleading for the president to describe this section as an entirely voluntary provision that simply increases the information offered to Medicare recipients," and added, "It's all just more evidence that the Democratic legislative proposals will lead to health care rationing."

This is a deliberate strategy by Palin, to force the result described above - to pressure the Senate into dropping the provision entirely. As the wire article notes, nowhere in the bill is there any coercive element to the end-of-life counseling, something that is absolutely clear from a reading of the relevant section of the bill. Here is what the bill (the draft version passed by the House) says (Section 1233 of H.R.3200):

===

Advance Care Planning Consultation

===

Note that a "living will" or "advance care directive" is not the same thing as a "do not resuscitate" (DNR) order. A DNR is one type of advance directive, but as the page on advance directives at the National Institutes of Health makes clear, your advance directive is a choice to either accept or refuse medical care. The counseling described above is to give the patient the information they need to make that choice.

Note that the above description of "Advance Care Planning Consultation" is essentially an addendum (hhh) to an already large list of other "medical and health services" defined in Section 1861 of the Social Security Act, specifically section s(2), which defines specific things that are eligible for reimbursement ranging from the generic (hospital services) to the mind-numbingly specific (blood clotting factors for hemophilia patients). There is no coercive language whatsoever - only a list of what may be covered (and ONLY what may be covered. If it isn't listed, it isnt covered.)

It is clear that Sarah Palin knows full well that there is no way the proposed changes can be "misinterpreted" as Sen. Grassley claims. The bottom line is that Palin is deliberately lying in order to curry favor with the "pro-life" movement, which as we saw in teh Terry Schiavo case abhors the idea of euthanasia at all costs. With Schiavo, the decision to end care was made by her husband, in the absence of a directive from Terry Schiavo herself. All the legislation is trying to do is to reimburse doctors for time spent discussing living wills with the patients, so that the patients are more likely to have a living will in place. Having a living will is a choice, and some people will choose DNRs and others will not. But that should be up to the patient in the ideal case - and knowing their wishes explicitly and legally is the best way to avoid a horrible trauma and agony for the surviving famikly members as well as ensure that the patient's own wishes are truly respected.

Republicans claim that the Democrats are trying to deny choice, even though in this case it is they who are denying it, by scaremongering over an issue which was supposed to help patients retain their rights to make decisions about their own care. It is hypocrisy of the highest order.

The fact that Palin is outright lying on one hand about death panels, and then on the other arguing that people should "stick to the issues" on health care, is just further evidence of her intentions to try and sandbag genuine debate. And she has succeeded.