Did anyone see this? Jon Stewart had this nutbag on his show tonight. It was one of the most surreal interviews I’ve seen in a while. She was claiming that the health care bill will require doctors to tell Mediacre patients to kill themselves, and pointing at exact items in the Bill that said absoltely nothing of the kind.
What made the interview even stranger was how happy and giggly she was about the whole thing – like she was plugging a cookbook – and how unflustered she was by the fact that the legislation said exactly the opposite of what she was alleging it said.
I give her credit for at least going on the show, I guess. Sarah Palin would never have the guts. I think the woman might literally be mentally ill, though.
Rather than slicing the interview down to fit the program like they usually do, they just sort of cut it off mid-stream. The full thing will be on www.thedailyshow.com, but probably not until tomorrow.
Her binder 'bout exploded in the first minute of the interview. There’s some solid PR planning there, sister.
Thing is, I got the sense that maybe there was a slight chance she could have had a fact-based point somewhere in her blatherings, but apparently she left that page on her kitchen table. Seems that all you need in order to be a female conservative talking head is medium length blonde hair and a childhood idealization of Nellie Olsen. They never remember that Nellie ended up being shoved into puddles or bins of flour more often than not, the scene ends with Ingalls children laughing at her, and then you get your ass handed to you just by a guy humming the Jeopardy theme.
I loved Stewart’s “you know you could use post-it notes as bookmarks… they’re in all different colors now”. Who the hell carries a 600 page notebook onto a national show and then clumsily flips through it?
I appreciated that she came on the show. I wouldn’t say that she is a crazy bitch, but I would say that she has a different interpretation of what the words of the bill meant. In a way, I have empathy for anyone who is reading those words in that 1000+ page document and gets a little nervous. At work I have to occassionally slog though goverment written standards that can be read multiple ways, and could lead to unscrupulous people benefiting from unintended rewards.
The other day, three other professionals in my field (mental health) and I, all with 20 plus years experience argued for close to one hour what the government meant (and how our policies and procedures should change) in one new government standard that had maybe a total of 20 sentences. We all had different opinions, found different loopholes in the language, and different ways that you could technically get away with some bad stuff. Of course, none of us are unethical or have a polital agenda but if we did, we would have some good fuel.
She seemed that she was getting at that there was some backhanded incentive for doctors to do something bad, but she was so confused I couldn’t understand what the heck she was talking about. Believe me, I have seen plenty of unintended incentives and unitended consequences in government plans/policies concerning public health before. C’mon man, I bill Medicaid (really Medicaid isn’t all that bad for mental health if you got a good biller)
Hm. She has a Ph.D. in U.S. Constitutional History from Columbia University. I mean, I know that you can have a Ph.D. and still be really whackadoodle, but I’m still really surprised.
It wasn’t one of Jon’s better interviews, because he kept on switching to the somewhat irrelevant need for change - which she actually said she agreed with. I think they all had their bags packed for vacation.
It’s great she never actually demonstrated the stuff she claimed was in there was. But he didn’t call her on it well enough. Quality measures? I hope they are in there - how can we save money if they aren’t. Making sure the wishes get followed. I’m betting the doctors don’t dinged if the patient changes - only if they don’t follow the patients wishes.
Maybe this is covered in the stuff they cut.
Watching it again, I don’t really know anything. I think I’ll just agree with Mesquite-oh. Maybe there are some unfortunate, unintended incentives there in the bill, for all I know. Maybe there aren’t. I don’t really know anything, so I’ll retract the accusation of “whackadoodleness” till I feel more confident about it.
The thing that really pissed me off about her - well, one of the many things - was that she wouldn’t look at Jon while making her case. She kept looking out at the audience, arms akimbo and smiling madly, like she was on an infomercial hawking a blender!
I loved Jon scatting Yakkety-sax while she furiously searched for page 423, though. Set me into a long coughing jag from laughing so hard.
Uh, no. And you don’t seem to understand the meaning of the phrase, “facts have a liberal bias”.
It doesn’t mean that facts generally add up to reinforce the liberal point of view. It’s a mocking of conservatives who tend to cry “liberal bias” when confronted with inconvenient facts.
I love how people spout pithy slogans that mean precisely what the words connote and they assume that someone doesn’t understand just because they roll their eyes.
No guys, we really are more in touch with reality than those other guys!
Yes, I understand, but in it’s use it has just become another lazy liberal backslap. ‘Look at us we’re so smart, I’m so glad I’m a liberal.’
Me, I’m glad I’m a beta, you liberals work too hard.
(really Medicaid isn’t all that bad for mental health if you got a good biller)