This came via AmericaBlog, and while Coburn makes the point that "it's not a Democrat or Republican problem," (let's be "bipartisan" about it, mmkay?) I think Sudbay has it right:
I don't get this argument from Coburn or those inciting violence. "The people" elected this government. Our side won. If Coburn's side isn't happy, they need to elect their own people. That's how it's done in the United States. The very fact that Coburn didn't immediately denounce the threats of violence is way beyond the pale.
Coburn is among the enablers. Frankly, this clip is so loaded with irony that I don't think I even need to point it out.
For a little context, listen to Rachel Maddow:
In that light, Coburn's little homily on how "it's the government's fault" shows up as pure bullshit. But then, we knew that.
Add in this story from NYT:
The stubborn yet false rumor that President Obama’s health care proposals would create government-sponsored “death panels” to decide which patients were worthy of living seemed to arise from nowhere in recent weeks.
Advanced even this week by Republican stalwarts including the party’s last vice-presidential nominee, Sarah Palin, and Charles E. Grassley, the veteran Iowa senator, the nature of the assertion nonetheless seemed reminiscent of the modern-day viral Internet campaigns that dogged Mr. Obama last year, falsely calling him a Muslim and questioning his nationality.
But the rumor — which has come up at Congressional town-hall-style meetings this week in spite of an avalanche of reports laying out why it was false — was not born of anonymous e-mailers, partisan bloggers or stealthy cyberconspiracy theorists.
Rather, it has a far more mainstream provenance, openly emanating months ago from many of the same pundits and conservative media outlets that were central in defeating President Bill Clinton’s health care proposals 16 years ago, including the editorial board of The Washington Times, the American Spectator magazine and Betsy McCaughey, whose 1994 health care critique made her a star of the conservative movement (and ultimately, New York’s lieutenant governor).
Read the whole article for a good take on just how this whole thing is operating. (And I might add that if even NYT is calling bullshit, you know it's hip deep.)
Batocchio at Hullaballoo has some incisive observations. It's brutal:
To the conservative, right-wing base, Obama is both a socialist and a fascist, and simultaneously a weak appeaser to foreign rulers but a ruthless dictator domestically. Bush's monarchial power grabs were just fine with them, and anyone who spoke out then was a traitor, but now that Obama's president, America's being ripped asunder. Internment camps were once a swell idea, but not now. Elections have consequences, but for the right-wing, only Republican politicians have legitimacy. There's a range of sincerity to the craziness, of course – Betsy McCaughey's a vile hack, Sarah Palin's more of a demagogue, while many in the rank and file believe every evil tale they're told (and invent new ones). Regardless, they're bad news, and the conservatives trying as usual to blame their own craziness on liberals and Democrats are particulary loathsome. Journalists pretending that "both sides" are somehow equally hostile, irrational and dishonest is sadly not surprising, but it is highly irresponsible. The 'Deny Me Health Care or Give Me Death' movement is fascinating from a psychological standpoint, and may make for good headlines, but oddly enough, the republic doesn't work very well when the stupidest, meanest, greediest and most dishonest citizens get to set the agenda.
Brutal, but on target, as far as I can see.
Coburn did have one thing right: it's not about health care. It's about sinking Obama, and it always has been. The Republican stance is obvious: we win, or we burn the house down. This just happens to be the issue that worked for them.
Update
Maha does an elegant job of demolishing some of the anti-health care arguments, and actually uses (gasp!) facts, which have been in disastrously short supply in this campaign.
I want to comment a little more on Newt’s op ed in the Los Angeles Times today, because he says some things that I have seen popping up in a lot of right-wing commentary.
One key proposal is to mandate an “essential benefit package” for every private insurance policy sold in the United States. Currently, individuals and employers usually make these coverage decisions. This legislation creates a new federal Health Benefits Advisory Committee that would decide instead. For example, if you are a single male with no children, the legislation still requires you to have maternity benefits and well-baby and well-child care coverage. You don’t want or don’t need that coverage? Sorry, you have to pay for it anyway.
Putting aside the fact that single men father children all the time, and in a perfect world those single men would be just as responsible for maternity and well-baby bills as married ones —
Insurance works by risk pooling — everybody throws money into a pot so that there’s money for people who are hit with unexpected expenses. In order for this to work, in any given year most of the people in the pool throw more money into the pot than take it out. Generally, the bigger the pool, the better it works. Insurance companies invest the premium money, and they make most of their profits from investments.
Newt's "argument" is disingenuous at best. (Read it on an empty stomach -- you'll be doing yourself a favor.) It's nothing but a pack of lies from the beginning. Maha does a good take-down.
(Giggle alert: This one really got me:
You cannot spend an additional $1 trillion of taxpayer money and reduce the role of government.
Umm -- actually, you can -- it's called "the bailout of the banking industry.")
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