"I'm registering Independent tomorrow."

By: Lowell
Published On: 10/10/2007 9:27:17 PM

Wow, this is truly unbelievable.  Keep in mind, as you read the following, that this is a long-time Republican activist writing:

I simply can not believe this is what the Republican party has become. I just can't. It just makes me sick to think all those years of supporting this party, and this is what it has become. Even if you don't like the S-Chip expansion, it is hard to deny what Republicans are- a bunch of bitter, nasty, petty, snarling, sneering, vicious thugs, peering through people's windows so they can make fun of their misfortune.

I'm registering Independent tomorrow.

What prompted this tirade?  Apparently, a staffer for Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) was behind a smear campaign aimed at 12-year-old Graeme Frost and his family.  What did Graeme do?  Well, he had the audacity to ask President Bush to sign the children's health (SCHIP) bill.  Thanks to SCHIP, Graeme "was able to get the medical care he needed after a serious car accident caused severe brain trauma, paralyzed one of his vocal chords and put him in a coma."  Here's what Graeme had to say:

...Three years ago, my family was in a really bad car accident. My younger sister Gemma and I were both hurt. I was in a coma for a week and couldn't eat or stand up or even talk at first. My sister was even worse. I was in the hospital for five-and-a-half months and I needed a big surgery. For a long time after that, I had to go to physical therapy after school to get stronger. But even though I was hurt badly, I was really lucky. My sister and I both were.

My parents work really hard and always make sure my sister and I have everything we need, but the hospital bills were huge. We got the help we needed because we had health insurance for us through the CHIP program.

But there are millions of kids out there who don't have CHIP, and they wouldn't get the care that my sister and I did if they got hurt. Their parents might have to sell their cars or their houses, or they might not be able to pay for hospital bills at all.

Now I'm back to school. One of my vocal chords is paralyzed so I don't talk the same way I used to. And I can't walk or run as fast as I did. The doctors say I can't play football any more, but I might still be able to be a coach. I'm just happy to be back with my friends.

I don't know why President Bush wants to stop kids who really need help from getting CHIP. All I know is I have some really good doctors. They took great care of me when I was sick, and I'm glad I could see them because of the Children's Health Program.

I just hope the President will listen to my story and help other kids to be as lucky as me...

Despite Graeme's powerful plea, President Bush ended up heartlessly vetoing the children's health care bill, absurdly claiming that it was too expensive, even though it was only a tiny fraction of the cost of even one year of the Iraq war.  Now, Congress is working to override the veto, and we'll definitely be watching to see which Virginia Republicans vote with Bush and against children on this one.  For more background on this story, see here, here,  and here.

Truly unbelievable.


Comments



The Bush Administration Connection (AnonymousIsAWoman - 10/10/2007 9:44:55 PM)
Goes even deeper for Senator McConnell.  His wife, Elaine Chao, is Secretary of Labor in this administration.

These people are without shame!



The F-Word (The Grey Havens - 10/10/2007 10:28:33 PM)
Growing up Jewish, you pick up a lot of stories about scapegoating, thuggishness, propaganda, and how slow and creeping and then suddenly and violently a civilization based on culture can fall into dictatorship.

As an avid observer, and sometime participant in partisan politics in the last few years, it's been a difficult tightrope to walk.  You see the sweet seductive face of f-word politics, on the blogs and on Fox opinion media, and even as the extremists and reactionaries of the right scream about Stalinism, communism, and socialism, you refrain from using the actual term, because as soon as you mention that age, that time, that philosophy, you suddenly become an extremist yourself.

Nonetheless, it's impossible, as a person of conscience to watch the conservative war on conscience, and see how much ignorance, hatred, and greed can eat away at the American soul, and not be temped... sorely tempted.

So, as a witness to this evil, and it is evil to mercilessly attack a child the way these zealots have with such vigor, the balancing act becomes that much more difficult, that much more horrible.

Wikipedia gives this definition of the F-word:

an authoritarian political ideology (generally tied to a mass movement) that considers individual and other societal interests subordinate to the needs of the state. F[...]ists seek to forge a type of national unity, usually based on (but not limited to) ethnic, cultural, or racial attributes. Various scholars attribute different characteristics to f[...]ism, but the following elements are usually seen as its integral parts: nationalism, statism, militarism, totalitarianism, anti-communism, corporatism, populism, collectivism, and opposition to economic and political liberalism.
 

I've been fighting really hard not to use this word.

It gets harder every day.



John Cole (KCinDC - 10/10/2007 10:31:51 PM)
This wasn't that surprising. John Cole has been pretty vehemently anti-Bush and opposed to the current Republican Party for a while now, though he did vote for Bush in 2000 and 2004. I think Terry Schiavo was the real last straw. I and some of his other commenters were actually surprised that he was still registered Republican at this point, since he'd made clear he wouldn't be voting that way for some time, but he explained that he'd maintained some small hope of helping to restore his party to sanity. That hope is now gone.


Registering Independent Doesn't Cut It--Register Democrat! (soccerdem - 10/11/2007 9:46:32 AM)
You are sick of a party that uses as stalking horses the likes of Rush, Sean, Ann Coulter, the 2 Lauras(Ingraham and the Dr.), O'Reilly, Novak; and in the past,the departed Barbara Olson (may her sweet smile lighten up her heavenly abode), Victoria Toensig, the women who claimed Pres. Clinton forced his attentions on them (this, a man who had merely to smile and they fell backwards--ask Monica) yet supported him one day after the alleged assaults, Bruce Fein, Bob Barr and Lawyer Turley, these three now lamenting the havoc they inflicted on the country by their continuous attacks on Clinton over something that, evidently, some 45% of our daughters are doing to their high school boyfriends in the back and front seats of their Chevy, and sundry other characters: Lindsey Graham, Mitch, Henry Hyde (who, in turn, had no Dr. Jekyll side at all, as it later turned out when the truth became known), and all the rest.

Why then are you now registering as an Independent instead of a Democrat?  Is it because you are fond of the morality of the Independent Party?  Oh, I stand corrected--there is no Independent Party.

The simple, unalloyed fact is that no matter how much we throw our hands up in disgust at individual votes of the Democratic reps in the House and Senate, as a Party the Democrats will inevitably, if they have a Democratic president, certainly, give us the SCHIP -type programs, the Social Security and Medicare and Medicaid programs, and all the programs that make life for the poor, hungry and disposessed a little or a lot better.  They'll bring better aid programs for students, all grades, they'll bring food stamps and midnight basketball.  The Republicans won't!

So why register as an Independent if the plight of little Graeme and Gemma bothers you?  Do you, deep down, really remain unsure as to whether this was a Democratic Potemkin trick, that Graeme is really Mickey Rooney with makeup?  Or do you want to continue to vote your "principles" which are at odds with the above humane programs?

Because there is no "conservative" party anymore, as even Republicans will tell you (look at the debt, look at how the Democrats left us in 2001 compared to where we are today), I see no reason to slide toward the so-called "middle" unless you still harbor feelings toward the McConnells.  And that is either inhumane or hypocritical.



Neil Boortz.... a real piece of work (Dianne - 10/11/2007 12:30:09 PM)
A few minutes ago, I was in my car and turned on my radio to 107.7 (the old Wash Post radio station) and who's on....Neil Boortz, a miserable, mean-spirited wretch, who is railing against a Paul Krugman column about the financial disparity that has grown between the rich and poor in this country since George Bush took office.  Boortz's words of wisdom to his radio disciples:

"Make life so miserable for these people (the poor, unemployed, etc.) that they'll get off their lazy butts..."

So if anyone out their works for Social Security or Medicare, I'd suggest that you find his name and strike it off the rolls.....as these are GOVERNMENT run programs and he's sick of them!!!

Now Mr. Boortz good luck in your old age.  Oh and I hope you don't have any extravagently expensive health problems. 



Exactly right, soccerdem (Teddy - 10/11/2007 12:42:17 PM)
When I left republicanism four years ago (being a tad more observant than Mr. Cole, I noticed the disaster a tad earlier), I said to myself: "Someone has to stop this insanity" and then realized, in classic fashion, that that someone had to be the one saying that. To stop the insanity there was only one organized opponent in our political system with even a remote chance of kicking out the nutcase republican party--- and that was the Democratic Party. I might not agree with everything about that party, I might have reservations about some of their policies, but if ever we are to stop the  republican juggernaut of authoritarianism, the hallucinatory policies, in short, the insanity, and "throw the bums out"--- it would be by electing Democrats, and replacing the nuts with sanity, with humaneness.

Mr. Cole, once again you are deficient in your observations.  I detect a lingering swirl of mental mist, th result of your years as a brainwashed sycophant.  Get rid of the last bit of programming, shoulder the adult responsibility of rectifying all the damage your past support has caused, make penance, or whatever you want to call it--- get your buns over to the Democratic Party and fulfill your conversion. Despite what you have been brainwashed to believe, the Democratic Party is not the demon you have been taught to fear.

 



Cut Cole some slack (KCinDC - 10/11/2007 1:10:55 PM)
He made clear even before he left the Republican Party that he'd be voting for Democrats and not for Republicans, and encouraging others to do so. And his blogging is helping our side, and is more effective if he's an independent.


I agree, I'm very happy to see him leave (Lowell - 10/11/2007 1:14:52 PM)
the Republican Party.  If he's only comfortable becoming an independent right now, what's wrong with that?  I'm just glad to see yet another Republican realize how far off the deep end their party has gone under Bush/Cheney/etc.


I'd call myself an independant too (Pain - 10/11/2007 2:49:20 PM)
and have voted republican in the past, but I won't be voting republican again until they get out of bed with the religious right.  So, in other words, never.


Okay, I will admit (Teddy - 10/11/2007 3:38:00 PM)
I spent several years considering myself an Independent "leaning republican," meaning I was still a good republican at heart, just kept telling myself I was still there, trying to take back the party from  the nutcases, and it looks as though Mr. Cole kidded himself the same way.  Maybe Independent is a way station on the road to recovery, so slack is hereby granted.

Nevertheless, time has passed, our political system is that much more damaged, we are that much further bollixed up, the situation is that much more desperate. It is time for "all good men to come to the aid of the party." Time is of the essence; i.e., Mr. Cole, you have less time available to wander in the wilderness.



Really excellent post, Lowell (Catzmaw - 10/11/2007 11:11:01 AM)
Everyone should go read the links you posted.  Mr. Cole's attack on the creeps attacking this young boy was on target.  It makes my blood boil to hear the nonsense spewed by the rightwingnuts on this issue. 


Center for American Progress weighs in (Lowell - 10/11/2007 12:40:18 PM)
Right Wing Attacks 12-Year Old Boy

On Sept. 22, President Bush used his weekly radio address to lambaste Congress for its efforts to increase five-year funding for the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP). In the address, Bush threatened to veto the bill, which he eventually did on Oct. 3. A week later, in an effort to change Bush's mind, the Democratic Radio Address featured a 12-year old boy named Graeme Frost, who had received life-saving care through Maryland's CHIP program after his family was in a car accident. "I don't know why President Bush wants to stop kids who really need help from getting CHIP," said Frost in the address. "All I know is I have some really good doctors...and I'm glad I could see them because of the Children's Health Program." Conservatives, like House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH), were quick to complain about Frost's impassioned plea for presidential compassion. "To use an innocent young child as a human shield...is, frankly, beyond the pale," said a spokesman for Boehner. The Weekly Standard's William Kristol called Frost's address "pathetic." Boehner and Kristol's disparaging complaints were mild, however, compared to the attacks on Frost and his family that soon developed on conservative blogs and talk radio over the past week.

THE ANATOMY OF A SMEAR: On Saturday, Oct. 6, a poster at Free Republic propagated information alleging that Frost was actually a rich kid being pampered by the government. Among other bits of information, the post by the Freeper "icwhatudo" asserted that Graeme and his sister Gemma attend wealthy schools that cost "nearly $40,000 per year for tuition" and live in a well-off home. The Freeper smear, which distorted the facts with innuendo, was soon picked up across the conservative blogosphere. The National Review, Michelle Malkin, Wizbang, Powerline, the Weekly Standard blog and others all used the Freeper's claims to launch assaults on the Frost family. "The boy is fair game," said National Review's Mark Steyn. One blogger at RedState suggested that "a team of PIs" should be hired to investigate the Frost family's finances in order to "destroy their lives with that info." Instead of hiring a team, Malkin investigated the Frosts herself, visiting Mr. Frost's business and driving to the family's home. On Monday, right-wing radio host Rush Limbaugh picked up the story, claiming that Democrats "filled [Graeme's] head with lies just as they have some of these soldiers." Though congressional conservatives are staying officially silent on the smear campaign, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell's (R-KY) office is intently tracking the story while one Senate GOP aide told the Politico, "We're going to ride this story."

MYTH -- THE FROSTS ARE RICH: As The New Republic's Jonathan Cohn, a health care reporter, notes, the Freeper's charges amount to little more than the fact that the Frosts "have jobs, make a decent living, and own their home." "One house in the Graeme's neighborhood has recently sold for half a million dollars, they reported," writes Cohn. "Graeme's father, Halsey, owned his own business and had his own commercial property. Graeme and his sister went to an elite private school where tuition was some $20,000 a year." While these assertions by the Freeper are correct, they omit crucial context that directly undermines the conclusions fueling the conservative histrionics. Together, the Frosts "earn between $45,000 and $50,000 a year," which makes them "eligible for Maryland's Children's Health Program." Though Graeme does attend the private school, the Frosts only pay $500 a year due to a scholarship. Because of injuries sustained in her accident, his sister Gemma attends another private school that costs $23,000 a year, but the state pays the entire cost. As for their "lavish home," the Frosts bought it in 1990 for $55,000, at a time when the neighborhood was less safe. Including Halsey's workplace, the family "is still paying off the mortgages on both properties" they own. In her investigation of the family, Malkin spoke to a friend of Halsey's, who said the family is "struggling," but she refused to believe it.

FACT -- SCHIP HELPS WORKING FAMILIES: The fact that families like the Frosts can "have jobs, make a decent living and own their homes" but still not be able to afford health insurance is exactly what SCHIP seeks to address. "SCHIP finances basic, usually private health insurance for children in families with too much income to qualify for Medicaid but too little to afford coverage on their own," write former Sen. Tom Daschle (D-SD) and Center for American Progress President and CEO John Podesta. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that at any given time, about 5.4 million children are eligible for Medicaid or SCHIP, yet remain uninsured. The SCHIP bill passed by Congress, but vetoed by Bush, would extend coverage to four million children. "We stood up in the first place because S-chip really helped our family," Bonnie Frost told the New York Times. "And we wanted to help other families." For her desire to extend the help her family has received to others in need, Ms. Frost and her family are now being targeted by conservatives with an ideological axe to grind.



This party even makes more sense than the GOP right now (PM - 10/11/2007 1:03:52 PM)
http://zapatopi.net/...

The Thermodynamic Law Party.  Herewith one of its positions:

"For too long we have relied on the fiction of radioactivity for our nation's defense. One of my first acts in office will be to call for hearings on the reality of our "nuclear defense" and the money that has been spent on it. I will also enact a special Kelvinian Meditation branch of our armed services that will bring Thermodynamic understanding to our defensive policies. This branch will also include a Kelvinic Levitation wing that will create a shield of negative Entropy around our nation making it impervious to hostile forces."

You think I'm kidding that the TLP is preferable to the GOP?  Read what Anne Coulter, one of the GOP's loudest supporters, and a favorite speaker at their functions, said today ---http://www.americabl...