McConnell's Aide and the Left: When Do Questions Turn into a "Smear"?

Only on the Left:
When Asking Questions About the Frosts Turned Into a "Jihad" and a "Smear"

by Mondoreb

You've got to hand it to the Sinister Sound Machine that is the Left blogosphere: the side that is forever fascinated with "fascists" and labeling opponents as "Nazis" sure knows how the National Socialists operated.

An aide to Sen. Mitch McConnell(R-KY) alerts reporters that there were questions about Graeme Frost and his family's resources and their use by the Democrats as an example of Republican coldheartedness toward the poor. Legitimate questions. Questions that have yet to be answered. Don't expect any answers to be forthcoming from the usual media mouthpieces: they're too busy hurling the words "jihad" and "smear" at anyone curious enough to ask.

From James Carroll at the Louisville Courier-Journal:
WASHINGTON -- Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell's spokesman acknowledged yesterday that he alerted reporters last week to questions bloggers raised about the financial circumstances of a 12-year-old boy Democrats had used to urge passage of an expanded children's health insurance program.

But Don Stewart, the Kentucky Republican's communications director, said he also wrote a follow-up e-mail later the same day that said a blogger he respected had determined that there was no story and that "the family is legit."

Stewart said there was no effort by McConnell to discredit 12-year-old Graeme Frost, of Baltimore, or cast aspersions on the family.

"It would be kind of hard to 'slime' somebody when I was telling reporters there's no story here and the family is legitimate," Stewart said yesterday.

But why let a few facts get in the way of a SlimeFest? Somehow, the alerting of reporters to bloggers' questions about the Frosts was an unspeakably filthy act. And, to the Left, it was: someone had asked some questions. Let the shoutdown begin.

A favorite tactic of the Brownshirts was to break up meetings of political parties opposed to the Nazis. Anytime someone questioned the Nazis or their methods, the speaker was shouted down. The pro-Nazi press piled on. The original questions never got answered and were soon forgotten. Sound familiar?

What of the questions of the Frosts, their resources and whether they were used in a dishonest manner by Democrats eager to score political points? Not much ink has been spilled by Patheosocialists answering them. The debate has shifted: now the questions are all about the "jihad" against the Frosts, the dirty "smears" they've had to endure. The guilty aide who did the "smearing.

Next time questions are asked and the curious person gets shouted down and attacked for their motives, ask where have you seen this before? You only have to go back 70 years for good examples; or you can watch Countdown.

Karen Tumulty at Swampland drives home the point:

As for Stewart, I have had few dealings with him in the past, but my colleagues who talk to him more frequently regard him well... I suspect that the next time something like this happens, Stewart won't be so quick to hit the Send button.

I'll bet he won't. That'll be one less questioner to take care of.

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Graeme Frost, HillaryCare, and "Meanies":Questions & Super Bugs in the System

[graphic:RidesAPaleHorse]
"You may remember that we tried to do that [pass her health care bill] in 1993 and 1994. We weren't totally successful, but I did not give up."

by Mondoreb

The headline didn't have the sensationalist bite that "Brain-Eating Microbes Kill Boy in Arizona Lake", but it did catch my attention.

Super Bug Kills 90 in UK

From CNN:
LONDON-- Nurses who didn't wash their hands and left patients lying in soiled beds were cited in an official report blaming mismanagement for the deaths of 90 people who contracted a bacterial infection in hospitals in southern England.

"Significant failings" at all levels contributed to infections of more than 1,000 patients at three hospitals, the Healthcare Commission said Thursday.

The patients were infected with Clostridium difficile, or C. diff, which can cause diarrhea, colitis and other intestinal problems, officials said.

"The Healthcare Commission has passed the copy of the report to us and that is being reviewed," said a spokesman for Kent Police, speaking on condition of anonymity in line with force policy.

One notices the "Healthcare Commission", is a government entity in the U.K. charged with providing Britons with the English version of HillaryCare. While reading the story, a question arises: Why would trial lawyers support socialized medicine? One of the plaintiffs' bar's most lucrative scams is endlessly suing members of the medical profession over every unfortunate outcome even slightly connected with medicine.

Socialized medicine will substitute Il Duce Hillary for Doc Jones. When Clostridium difficile strikes in the U.S., where will the loved ones of the deceased turn for succor under HillaryCare 2.0? Trial lawyers won't be able to pay their 'faux-expert witnesses' on what they'll make attempting to sue the United States government. No answer quickly came to mind as to why the ambulance-chasing community would continue to write checks to a candidate taking the food off their table.

Back to Super Bug:

The report into the spread of the highly contagious bacterium said nurses at three hospitals run by the Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells NHS trust were often too busy to wash their hands and left patients in their own excrement.

In recent years, Britain's superbug infection rates of bacteria like Clostridium difficile and MRSA have skyrocketed. In the 1990s, only five percent of in-hospital blood infections were from MRSA, the deadly bacteria resistant to nearly every available antibiotic. In past years, that figure has jumped to more than 40 percent.

A single snapshot from the European system that HillaryCare, EdwardsCare and other Democrat socialized health care schemes would have Americans believe is the latest ticket to a Socialist Workers Party paradise. And to any who offer evidence that government is not a solution here: the same dreary, droning chorus about how such evidence is the product of malevolence personified. Scratch the surface of any person questioning Dem poster child, Graeme Frost, and you'll find a--what? Another question?
Scratch the surface and perhaps you'll find Michelle Malkin:

To review quickly: We are now “meanies,” “hypocrites,” “slimers,” and “mobsters” for challenging the wisdom of taking money away from taxpayers of lesser means who are responsible enough to buy insurance before a catastrophic event in order to subsidize two-property, three-car families with four children in private schools and two parents who work “intermittently” and “part-time” who didn’t have the foresight or priorities to purchase insurance before a tragic auto accident.

Malkin couldn't possibly differ philosophically with the goose-stepping, "it's-my-right" hordes of lazy-thinking HillaryCare toadies. There are no questions here to be answered. One advantage of voting Democrat is that all your thinking is done for you: reduced into easily-remembered sound bites for the mainstream media. When you have the Left writing the rebuttal to any argument in American politics today, the script leans heavily on invective, inventive and otherwise.

Ultimately, it boils down to that same old questions, "Can the federal government run my life better than I can?" and "Why does anyone think that a government that has trouble delivering Uncle Frank's birthday card can deliver Uncle Frank's kidney operation?" As Mark Steyn put it:

Ultimately it's a reductive notion of liberty to say a free-born citizen can choose his own breakfast cereal and DVD rentals and cable package and, in the case of the Frosts, three premium vehicles, but demand the government take responsibility for all the grown-up stuff.

This week, stories of Super Bugs, trial lawyers, Graeme Frost, and left wing pejoratives provoked questions. But all one heard in the mainstream press was the music of the merrily-marching minions of socialized HillaryCare and its clones.

Don't look here for answers to those questions: a college football game beckons this afternoon and pigskins, not polemics, will be the main concern. No answers, but two more quotations will join the quote opening this post. One, by Hillary Clinton, is about how politics works. The other, by Tennessee Williams, is about how magic works.
Read them both and the reader may arrive at his own answers.

"The challenge now is to practice politics as the art of making what appears to be impossible, possible."

"Yes, I have tricks in my pocket, I have things up my sleeve. [A stage magician] gives us illusion that has the appearance of truth."

[HillarySlash graphic:Salon]
Hillary quotes & more here.
Tennessee Williams quote
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