[QUOTE=Diogenes the Cynic]
Funny how conservatives get all upset if they think some poor welfare mother is going to get away with an extra can of beans but they don’t bat an eye at the massive amount of waste being poured into Iraq. I think they have a very distorted mental picture of how much of their tax money really goes into social services.
[/QUOTE]
I think it’s funny how liberals always try to link unrelated issues in an attempt to make their case. The situation in Iraq is the situation in Iraq. It needs to be argued on it’s own merits. SCHIP is SCHIP. It needs to be debated on it’s own merits. The two have nothing to do with each other, and trying to claim any legitimate connection between the two is willfully misleading.
S-CHIP is polling at 80%. The far right has no argument for curtailing spending now,
[/QUOTE]
Well it’s a good thing that the right hasn’t suggested curtailing spending on SCHIP now, isn’t it? It doesn’t matter how many times you repeat this talking point, it doesn’t become true. “Fighting ignorance” and all that, remember?
[QUOTE=Weirddave]
I think it’s funny how liberals always try to link unrelated issues in an attempt to make their case…
[/QUOTE]
Its a good thing we have you here, to point this sort of thing out, about how the lefties are always lying and disinforming. It shows the integrity and honesty of the right in sharp contrast to the habitual mendacity of the left.
(This is a test…if your sarcasm meter does not register at least .9, you need to recalibrate. This has been a test…)
[QUOTE=Renob]
No, the personal information was relevant here to a certain extent. The fact that the kids attend a private school at first glance seems to undercut the claim that the family couldn’t afford health insurance. The fact that similar homes in their neighborhood sold for $500,000 also seems to undercut their claims.
Of course, this information turned out to be inaccurate. But that doesn’t mean it’s irrelevant.
If a family is claiming poverty and then sending their kids to private school, that’s relevant.
[/quote]
. naming the goddam school isn’t relevant. And put personal, confidential info into the hands of whack jobs. You may continue to attempt to spin, but there it is. And as for intentionally spreading untruths - have they removed the info from their websites and issued a ‘my bad’?
Don’t know, don’t care. the point you ignored was the level of outrage about Moveon’s ad about Petraeus vs the ‘shrug’ and ‘they put themselves in that position’ attitude wrt to these private citizens.
Let’s see if we can connect the dots for you here, Renob.
The “right-wing hate machine” whose existence you doubt, seems to have swung into action with this post at Free Republic, headlined, “The ‘Not So Poor’ 12 Year Old Who Rebutted Bush’s Veto on SCHIP.” The post provides the Frost’s home address, the information that Graeme and Gemma attend a specific private school, photos of the school, the amount of the yearly tuition for that school, the fact that Frost owns his own business and its name and commercial address, and a link to a photo of the Frosts in their kitchen, which he considers evidence of a recent kitchen remodel. It also includes the recent selling price of a house in the Frost’s neighborhood. It concludes:
Not ten comments have gone by before commenters suggest emailing or say that they plan to email the post to the newspapers and the conservative talk show hosts.
Now, the Freeper may very well have posted all he was able to find out about the Frosts. But you’ll notice that the post does not include the original selling price of their house, the fact that it was in a less-than-desirable neighborhood when they bought it 17 years ago, or its current appraised value. Nor does he include the information that the kids are attending their private school on scholarship/aid money.
Next up, we have Don Stewart, Communications Director for Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) sending out the following email to unnamed reports on Monday morning:
Now, who picks up this story and runs with it? Let’s see:
And probably at least a few more. What do these blog articles have in common? They all rely unquestioningly on the Freeper’s post, and spin out speculations from there. They demonize Democrats for “using children as cannon fodder” or staging a “cheap political stunt.” And they revel in the clumsiness of the Democrats using well-off freeloaders as the poster family for SCHIP.
And, finally, you know you’ve hit the big-time when Rush is on the scene:
Emphasis mine.
Granted, the lesson Rush draws from this isn’t about the scum-sucking, free-loading Frost family. No, no. It’s about roughly 50% of his fellow Americans:
Yep. That’s who we are, all right. A bunch of lying smear artists who’ll use anybody to score political points. Wait. Who’s we again??
Don’t know, don’t care. the point you ignored was the level of outrage about Moveon’s ad about Petraeus vs the ‘shrug’ and ‘they put themselves in that position’ attitude wrt to these private citizens.
But then, you knew that.
[/QUOTE]
Actually, the point is that it is either OK in both cases or wrong in both cases. The same behavior is not acceptable when your side does it and contemptible when the other guys do; it’s either acceptable or contemptible, period. Argue either way, but argue consistently.
[QUOTE=wring]
. naming the goddam school isn’t relevant. And put personal, confidential info into the hands of whack jobs. You may continue to attempt to spin, but there it is. And as for intentionally spreading untruths - have they removed the info from their websites and issued a ‘my bad’?
[/quote]
How was this information “confidential”? I assume that the only way these Internet folks could get ahold of it is through some sort of public records or other information publicly available. You have information that someon broke some sort of law to get it?
Calling someone in the military a traitor is childish name calling. It’s not right but then again Petraeus is a big boy and that firestorm was overblown. Examining the financial situation of a family that claims to be too poor to afford private health insurance and uses its situation to push for an expansion of SCHIP is legitimate. Anyone who called them names is childish, too. But they are fair game for an examination of their situation. They volunteered to be in the public eye.
[QUOTE=Weirddave]
Actually, the point is that it is either OK in both cases or wrong in both cases. The same behavior is not acceptable when your side does it and contemptible when the other guys do; it’s either acceptable or contemptible, period. Argue either way, but argue consistently.
[/QUOTE]
bullfucking shit.
on the one side, you have an adult, government employee, who as part of his fucking job was asked to testify in front of Congress, about his fucking job. and his consequences? a liberal site made a stupid, lame pun on his name, and disagreed w/his testimoney. That, frankly is part of the job when you’re a public figure.
on the other side, you have private citizens who were asked to speak to Congress about how a situation/government program affected their personal life. Said private citizens included a child. And their consequence? Their personal information was posted, their address, phone number, where the children went to school, estimates of how much their home was worth etc etc etc was posted.
ONe is definately not anywhere near similar to the other.
[QUOTE=Renob]
We’re not talking about anonymous Internet trolls here. We are talking about some vast GOP machinery that you and others claim personally demonizes and unfairly targets people who stand up against them. I’d like to see any evidence that anyone connected with the GOP “egged them on” in harassing this family. I’d even like to see evidence that Limbaugh or Malkin (neither of whom I respect, by the way) egged anyone on in harassing them…I’m looking for the “swift-boating” that has been claimed. All I see is a legitimate (if, perhaps, a bit rude) examination of the family by the media and some deplorable anonymous threats by a few nutjobs.
[/QUOTE]
If you can’t look at the aggregated evidence and not see a coordinated attack, then I give, because I’m not going to convince you. You have decided that all is fair in politics. What this does is let the fear mongers know that they can keep doing it. If we don’t stand up to them it’s implicit aquiescence.
If you can’t see the harrassment and intimidation in this episode, then I truly pity you. You’ve let partisanship overpower your humanity.
[QUOTE=Weirddave]
Actually, the point is that it is either OK in both cases or wrong in both cases. The same behavior is not acceptable when your side does it and contemptible when the other guys do; it’s either acceptable or contemptible, period. Argue either way, but argue consistently.
[/QUOTE]
Absolutely. And most of us have different standards when it comes to criticizing (a) those who have sought out high station and/or the full-time limelight; (b) mostly private citizens who’ve briefly stepped forward to take a public stand on something that matters to them; and (c) private citizens who haven’t done anything particularly wrong, and never sought the limelight at all. There’s nothing inconsistent about that.
[QUOTE=Renob]
How was this information “confidential”? I assume that the only way these Internet folks could get ahold of it is through some sort of public records or other information publicly available. You have information that someon broke some sort of law to get it?
[/quote]
didn’t claim laws were broken, but school records aren’t public. and you don’t know that the people themselves were listed. Not all of my personal info is listed/public.
again, you are ignoring the point - they didn’t simply “investigate” the financial situation, they posted the NAME of the school, the address they lived at and claimed that the people were therefore ‘too rich’ to deserve the help they got.
[QUOTE=yanceylebeef]
If you can’t look at the aggregated evidence and not see a coordinated attack, then I give, because I’m not going to convince you.
[/quote]
What aggregated evidence? All I see is that some Free Republic guy did some digging from Internet resources and that some online talking heads spread that information more widely. Then Mitch McConnell’s guy alerted mainstream journalists to it. That doesn’t seem to harmful to me. Yes, I’d be more comfortable had these online folks actually talked to the family to get their side of the story. But the mainstream media folks did, found out the real story, and that’s where we are today.
No, I have decided that if you are going to use your personal story to push for a political cause, you need to be ready to have people examine your personal story. What’s wrong with that?
I don’t need your pity. And I said there were people who harassed these folks and I’ve condemned them. However, someone pulling together information that can easily be gleaned by an Internet search is pretty far from harassment.
You’d probably be surprised at my political views. But of course anyone who does not parrot the MoveOn line for everything is somehow inhuman. Right.
[QUOTE=wring]
didn’t claim laws were broken, but school records aren’t public. and you don’t know that the people themselves were listed. Not all of my personal info is listed/public. again, you are ignoring the point - they didn’t simply “investigate” the financial situation, they posted the NAME of the school, the address they lived at and claimed that the people were therefore ‘too rich’ to deserve the help they got.
[/QUOTE]
Look at the Free Republic post. The person who pulled together all that info lists exactly where he got it from. This information was publicy available on the Internet.
[QUOTE=Weirddave]
Well it’s a good thing that the right hasn’t suggested curtailing spending on SCHIP now, isn’t it? It doesn’t matter how many times you repeat this talking point, it doesn’t become true. “Fighting ignorance” and all that, remember?
[/QUOTE]
From Roll Call’s Stuart Rothenberg (subscription required, so I’m quoting.)
“It’s just stunning to me,” one veteran Republican strategist told me this week, “that after seven years of Republicans complaining that the president won’t use his veto, [the White House and Republican Congressional leaders] choose their big showdown to be over children’s health care. Good Lord, it probably polls at 80 percent!”
Added the GOP insider: “If we had been talking about cutting spending and waste in government for years, we could oppose SCHIP. But now we are finally going to get religion on spending?”
So what advice would this Republican give his party’s Members of Congress? “If I were in a swing district, I’d vote to override. There’s no way I’d take a bullet on this.”
[QUOTE=Renob]
What aggregated evidence? All I see is that some Free Republic guy did some digging from Internet resources and that some online talking heads spread that information more widely. Then Mitch McConnell’s guy alerted mainstream journalists to it. That doesn’t seem to harmful to me. Yes, I’d be more comfortable had these online folks actually talked to the family to get their side of the story. But the mainstream media folks did, found out the real story, and that’s where we are today.
No, I have decided that if you are going to use your personal story to push for a political cause, you need to be ready to have people examine your personal story. What’s wrong with that?
I don’t need your pity. And I said there were people who harassed these folks and I’ve condemned them. However, someone pulling together information that can easily be gleaned by an Internet search is pretty far from harassment.
You’d probably be surprised at my political views. But of course anyone who does not parrot the MoveOn line for everything is somehow inhuman. Right.
[/QUOTE]
I think you’d be surprised at my political views as well.
All I’m trying to say is we are looking at the same facts and coming up with different responses. You see it one way, I see it another. If everyone had had this level of debate at the outset, we wouldn’t be having it now.
[QUOTE=Renob]
However, once again, since this family was putting its personal story out there as justification for SCHIP expansion, they should not be too surprised when their personal story gets a thorough review. They deserve scrutiny; they do not deserve harassment.
[/QUOTE]
I agree.
I also think that there’s a big difference between ‘scrutiny’ and ‘using each little fact to make the Frosts look like villains, before having any idea of what the facts mean.’ A Freeper finds that two Frost kids are in private school. They must be rich! goes the whole of Right Blogistan. They’ve got kids in expensive private schools, and the assholes are expecting us to pick up their medical insurance! They live in an expensive house! The dad owns his own business! Their kitchen has granite countertops! They’re rich! Why do the scumsuckers want us to pay their bills?
That’s not scrutiny; that’s jumping to the conclusion they fully intended to jump to, if they could find a shred of evidence to support it.
[QUOTE=Renob]
What aggregated evidence? All I see is that some Free Republic guy did some digging from Internet resources and that some online talking heads spread that information more widely. Then Mitch McConnell’s guy alerted mainstream journalists to it. That doesn’t seem to harmful to me. Yes, I’d be more comfortable had these online folks actually talked to the family to get their side of the story. But the mainstream media folks did, found out the real story, and that’s where we are today.
[/quote]
Sure, that’s where we are today. The “online talking heads” and their readers are not there, because none of the sites that I listed in my previous post have printed a retraction or in any way tried to set the record straight, as far as I’ve been able to tell. That’s not where Rush Limbaugh and his ditto-heads are today, because Rush picked up the Freeper’s story and gave it a push, and has not attempted to right what the Freeper got wrong. And it’s certainly not where the Frosts are today – they’re still getting anonymous phone calls, emails, and letters, courtesy of the aforementioned blog readers and ditto-heads.
And yes, I know you’ve decried that harassment. I understand that you disavow it utterly and completely. And I get that you don’t think it’s anybody’s fault except the people who are doing the harassing, and possibly the Frosts, for speaking out in favor of a government program that benefited them. But, as I said earlier, I draw a direct line from somebody posting misleading and distorted information in a public forum and seeing fit to include for his audience’s convenience his subject’s residential, business and school addresses, and the actions of some segment of that audience in harassing the target of the post.
[QUOTE=RTFirefly]
That’s not scrutiny; that’s jumping to the conclusion they fully intended to jump to, if they could find a shred of evidence to support it.
[/QUOTE]
It was also rabble-rousing. And let’s face it, by now the spokespersons for Wingnuttia should be aware of how their rabble respond to their rabble-rousing. First time I heard of Rush’s listeners angrily calling one of his targets was back during Clinton’s first term, fercryinoutloud. Earlier this year, the fury worked up by Bill Donohoe of the Catholic League over John Edwards’ blogger hires resulted in Melissa McEwan (who blogs as Shakespeare’s Sister) getting some pretty graphic threats. And so forth.
I hope we can agree, at a minimum, that in the future, these folks should be held at least partially responsible for what happens when they whip their fans up into a tizzy against some marginally public figure. They may not say, “go forth and harass,” but if their fans have a history of doing so, then it’s time for them to tell their fans to NOT do so.
[QUOTE=yanceylebeef]
All I’m trying to say is we are looking at the same facts and coming up with different responses. You see it one way, I see it another. If everyone had had this level of debate at the outset, we wouldn’t be having it now.
That is why I love the Dope.
[/QUOTE]
Indeed. It would be nice if the talking heads of both the left and the right were more like Dopers than like themselves.
There was evidence to support their conclusions. Yes, there were mitigating factors that weakened that evidence, but living in a nice neighborhood, having both kids in private school, and owning a few buildings and having two working parents certainly seems like the picture of someone who doesn’t need government health care. Yes, they did not know the full story and now that they do, I don’t hear this family being attacked.
[QUOTE=Aholibah]
Sure, that’s where we are today. The “online talking heads” and their readers are not there, because none of the sites that I listed in my previous post have printed a retraction or in any way tried to set the record straight, as far as I’ve been able to tell. That’s not where Rush Limbaugh and his ditto-heads are today, because Rush picked up the Freeper’s story and gave it a push, and has not attempted to right what the Freeper got wrong.
[/quote]
If this is the case, then these folks are certainly being irresponsible.
Posting publicly available information does not make one responsible for its misuse by nut jobs.
As necessary as this comment directed to me: “You’ve let partisanship overpower your humanity.”
