Where is the real David Broder and what have you done with him?
As I later wrote, the Johnsons “were engulfed by the crowd, and for more than half an hour, were reviled and jostled as they slowly made their way across the lobby. Johnson refused offers of police assistance, telling an aide that ‘if the time has come that I can’t walk with my lady across the lobby of the Adolphus Hotel, then I want to know it.’ “
The backlash was instant and powerful. As conservative columnists Rowland Evans and Robert Novak later wrote in their book about Johnson, the scene in the Adolphus “outraged thousands of Texans and Southerners. Sen. Richard Russell of Georgia, who had not campaigned for his party’s national ticket since 1944, telephoned Johnson that evening to offer his services.” The Johnson biographers concluded that while no one could prove the case, it is “a credible hypothesis” that the Adolphus incident swung Texas and perhaps other closely contested Southern states to the Democrats.
[….]Much improvement is needed in the health-care bills, but I think these angry opponents are playing with fire.
Seebach
Thing about Broder was his idolization of bipartisanship. Shrieking mobs aren’t very bipartisan.
Second, there is an account in Before the Storm where Broder is one of the first witnesses to republican infighting in the Goldwater campaign. Factions of the GOP were getting into fistfights and throwing chairs at each other. One assumes he may have been still human at that time, and he would have experienced revulsion and shock. This could remind him of that.
Seebach
Alternately, maybe he’s just concerned that the GOP is in danger of marginalizing itself, and he can’t have that.
JK
Doug,
Thanks for this link. I feel like Mt Vesuvius is going to erupt at some point. Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Lou Dobbs, Sean Hannity, et. al. are getting more delusional and deranged with each passing day. If some major act of violence should occur, these assholes will deny any responsibility and claim that the liberal media fanned the flames of hate.
Warren Terra
I just read the Broder piece, and I think you can call off the search – he’s still Brodertastic.
Yup, he’s upset about the screaming mobs abusing Congresspeople – but he’s upset not because they’ve had they’re heads filled with lies and are screaming nonsense (Broder, true to form, shows no interest whatsoever in the contents of legislation or in the complaints being so vociferously voiced); instead, he’s upset because they’re undecorous. Because people should gratefully accept whatever John Dingell says, because he’s been in office since Broder was able to remember being young.
If the lies the Teabaggers have imbibed were true – Dingell really were going to euthanize Grandma, if he were up there promoting the truly indefensible – then some of the haranguing that so troubles Broder might well be justified. Of course, those lies are completely baseless, not that Broder even raises the topic. Broder, being Broder, doesn’t care what Dingell is trying to do or what has the protesters so upset, he just can’t abide indecorous outbursts of any sort.
steve s
I strongly expect the media frame on recent events to be “Elitist dems valiantly opposed by Real Americans at energetic, spontaneous town-hall-style events.”
It’s nearly inconceivable to me that the Beltway Insiders could correctly frame this as “Democratic politicians obstructed by hostile idiots.”
If the correct frame actually catches on–many of the Villagers take their cue from Broder–health care reform could actually happen.
Humongous fucking ‘if’, though.
Mike G
It strikes me that there is more projection than a 23-theater multiplex in these ‘Deathers’.
Orcinus: These are people who believe it’s objectively true that the Obama administration’s health-care reforms will lead to a mass killing of the elderly and denial of treatment for Obama’s opponents.
Perhaps they believe this because it’s how they would expect KKKarl Rove to run national healthcare under a Bush Administration. They expect, they want government to be thuggish and politicized when Repigs are in charge, to favor their interests, to persecute and target their ‘enemies’. Now they’re scared shitless that an Obama government is going to do to them what they would do to ‘libruls’ in the same situation. The concept of a government that, while imperfect, strives to build institutions that serve the general good seems to be foreign to the Repig mind.
John Cole
OT- But Bob Somerby is now simply unreadable.
Elie
I believe that we are taking their best shots and are still on our feet.
What is their next game — where can they go after all the name calling and crazy? They have not and will not eliminate support for health care reform.
This is an amazing situation that I don’t think most are seeing evolve in the same way I am. Call me goofy (and I may be) but this is going well…not pretty…but well in that we are taking a lot of mess and there is continuing forward energy. Is it blasting through? No. But the momentum is there and it is in our direction… Will there be more pain? Most certainly. But we are moving, moving…
Kyle
I’d like to see as many of these angry nutcases as possible interviewed by cable news shows. Mr New Hampshire Gun-Toter, Mr. Don’t-Kill-My-Downs-Syndrome-Kid, Ms. Rationing Toilet Paper. Most of them are only used to the Limbaugh/Hannity/Beck-style uninterrupted rant, unchallenged by any opponents, shouting down or cutting off any non-sycophant callers that get through screening.
Put them in a back-and-forth format with an interviewer who isn’t sucking up to them and they’ll quickly make obvious to the world how stupid they are, how shallow their understanding of what they are screaming about, how ill-informed and easily misled their opinions, how third-rate their narrow, parochial minds are.
Buggy Ding Dong
Don’t forget, Broder is also about the establishment and doesn’t like it when the proles are screaming at their betters, regardless of which side of the political spectrum the screamers reside.
That said, I think we’ll see the polls changing here because people are seeing the batshit crazy AND they’ve seen the numbers at those town halls change from all fringe to other people speaking out in support.
They have Shaivoed themselves again.
Oh, and Grassley appears to have finally given even Baucus and Obama the evidence that there is no bipartisanship with the GOP. There is their way or no way.
Rick
I think (hope) this is a sort of exorcism of bad ideas – the demons are cussing and spitting as they are being driven out. Courage…
General Winfield Stuck
If the Right has lost Broder, then it is likely just lost.
The thing is, I don’t think they much care anymore. They have declared war of sorts, whereby mundane political discourse is becoming more moot by the day.
And the ordinary wingnut leaders in congress (especially southern) don’t toe the line of crazy, they will choose even more wingnutty leaders who will toe the line. The country is fixing to, or already has entered a tailspin, to what end is unclear, but the signs do not bode well for civility of any kind.
Steve
Dingell said he hadn’t faced as angry a crowd since he voted for the Civil Rights Act of 1964, but said, “I’m a tough old bastard” and won’t waver.
I think we all understand why LBJ got grief for his liberal policies in Texas. But I find it striking that Dingell experienced this level of anger over the Civil Rights Act, considering he represented Detroit and not Atlanta. Tells you something about the period.
Buggy Ding Dong
@General Winfield Stuck:
We’ve been in that era since the 1970s. Hell, we’re only six months into it with Obama, but the 8 years of Clinton were about as bad as it can get.
MikeJ
Tim Crouse – The Boys on the Bus
Something Fabulous
@John Cole: I know!! What on Earth happened, do you think? He used to be a little cranky and enjoyed his favorite themes maybe too much, but there was interesting and often funny stuff there. Now? It’s all so oddly bitter and seems like he always has to find some way to tie whatever the current topic to… how Gore has been mistreated. I think even Gore himself has gotten over it sooner.
General Winfield Stuck
And I’m not talking about issues like health care, or cap and trade, or anything tangible. I’m talking about the spirit of union that has let us scrape by since 1865. Nothing lasts forever, and the chasm of ideologies that has always existed in this country from day one is expanding rapidly apart. And I swear, I can’t think of anything that will stop it from becoming a dangerous gulf, lest another world war starts or something else that catastrophic making us get along in a common cause above the rift.
This has been your moment of gloom and doom.
The Other Steve
I think the GOP anger works against them, but only if the Democrats do not respond in kind.
Be tough, but be polite.
General Winfield Stuck
@Buggy Ding Dong:
It can get much worse. A rapidly improving economy would be a decent balm, for awhile.
JK
@John Cole:
Join the club. I’ve never encountered anyone like Bob Somerby. He constantly goes off on Olbermann and Maddow in a manner that recalls Dustin Hoffman’s screaming frenzy when Tom Cruise tried to get him on an airplane in Rain Man. At the same time, he acts as if Fox News Channel, Rush Limbaugh, Michelle Malkin, Glenn Reynolds, the National Review, and the Republican Party simply don’t exist.
I thought there was something fishy about Somerby when I discovered that he always referred to himself in the 1st person plural.
Somerby can go fuck himself.
MikeJ
wtf is up with the wingnut who’s still arguing in a thread that was posted on Bastille day?
JK
Favorite Instant Celebrity Wingnuts
Joe Wurzelbacher
Harriet Christian –deranged Hillary Clinton supporter
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=35pRuYPiY-0
Knuckle-dragging Neanderthal at McCain Palin Rally
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vgwiFOid0gA
Nash McCabe – voter from presidential debate who noted that Obama doesn’t usually wear a flag pin
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/227/story/34071.html
William Kostric – gun toting Ron Paul voter
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/…..56952.html
Carrie Prejean
Katy Abram
Anne Laurie
I have said this before, and will probably say it again: Anyone over the age of 40 has probably had to deal with “end of life issues” at the pointy end. We’ve been there when a grandparent, a parent, a good friend came to the end of their lives, and all medical science had to offer was a choice between “as little pain and as much dignity as possible” and “ugly, painful, expensive and futile.” Very few people, having witnessed a loved one suffer, are so religious or so unimaginative that they haven’t thought about what we want when our time comes. Some of us have made out living wills, and others are stockpiling (or not-quite-watching as our parent, spouse, friend) “exit solutions”. People with this kind of experience are not going to stand up in front of the tv cameras and yammer about Terri Shiavo, but believe me — they do know the difference between the hard truths they’ve lived and the easy bvllshit sloganeering. I just hope enough of us quietly contact our Congresscritters and remind them that Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck are entertainers, not voters.
Jennifer
I find Somerby unreadable more for his writing style than anything else. But he did yeoman’s work exposing media bias and hypocrisy back in the infancy of the blogosphere. I gotta at least give him that.
David Schraub
Where is the real David Broder and what have you done with him?
Who cares? I’d frankly rather not know.
JK
@Anne Laurie:
“Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck are entertainers, not voters”
Limbaugh and Beck are entertainers. Unfortunately, they both have messianic followings of listeners who vote and they will follow Limbaugh and Beck to the gates of hell.
JGabriel
David Broder:
When the wingnuts are losing David Broder, I think that’s a good sign for us.
.
valdivia
@Anne Laurie:
I am so glad you said this. I am dealing with my grandmother’s end of life issues right now and it has been the ugly messy futile type because a family member cannot let go and she left no directive. it has been exhausting and heart breaking. I do not wish it on anyone and to see this republicans make hay of this just makes me seething angry.
Mnemosyne
@Steve:
Two words: white flight. The Detroit metro area had by far one of the worst cases. I have a white friend (daughter of Polish immigrants) who was forever having to explain to people that, no, when she said she was from Detroit, she didn’t mean Bloomfield Hills or one of the other predominantly white suburbs. She meant Detroit.
Colette
Too right. Palin didn’t, as Broder uncritically claims, “call the plans Obama is supporting ‘downright evil.'” Instead, she was reacting to a completely fictitious and possibly hallucinatory version of her own, totally unrelated to the Obama/Congress HCR plans. Not that I would expect Broder to take any interest in, let alone make a distinction about, the easily verifiable facts and Palin’s trip to the far side of the moon.
Colette
@Warren Terra:
Too right. Palin didn’t, as Broder uncritically claims, “call the plans Obama is supporting ‘downright evil.'” Instead, she was reacting to a completely fictitious and possibly hallucinatory version of her own, totally unrelated to the Obama/Congress HCR plans. Not that I would expect Broder to take any interest in, let alone make a distinction about, the easily verifiable facts and Palin’s trip to the far side of the moon.
wag
Today in clinic I saw several elderly patients who all expressed concern about the possibility of “death panels,” and asked my opinion of the proposed health plan. I wasted no time and minced no words in describing the Right’s line of attack as b******t. after several minutes, I think I was able to reassure at least a few of them that Obama had no plans to kill them,
I plan on bringing up this topic regularly until the bill is passed, and urge all health care providers to do the same. We are in a position to counter the attacks with reason from a position of trust. It’s time we used that in our favor
Ailuridae
@Warren Terra:
Great post but I don’t think undecorous is a word. Is it?
@John Cole
Somerby’s performance since the primary season has been deeply childish. In his prime he would limit his absurd personal biases to his annual screed about Big Ten football. But after Clinton’s (admittedly) poor treatment by MSNBC he’s just incapable of letting it go. I imagine we are watching how a progressive becomes a reactionary in print with each passing daily entry. Its also very, very, very clear that he has some major issues with race.
latts
Well, now we finally know just how utterly batshit insane the right has to be to mildly distress David Broder.
Somehow, I’m not encouraged.
General Winfield Stuck
@wag:
It is a sad commentary on our national dialogue that you would even have to explain such a thing.
Another big fuck you to John McCain for inflicting us all with the thing called Sarah Palin.
jones
gee, it’s almost like the last 8 years just dropped out of history. Or else the dems were models of civility and tact and respect then, one. Or Broder is just a fucking POS hypocrite who only sees criticism and over the top behaviour as bad when it’s directed at a democrat.
We’ll just see how “fake” and “astroturfed” this dissent is, and how badly it’s turning off independents. Latest polls say more leaners are being persuaded in FAVOR of the dissenters.
Health care “reform” is dead. Live with it. And it will doom the dems in ’10. I’m talking bloodbath, not just marginal gains. Loss of the House and 4-5 Senate seats. And then Cole will come up with some dumb shit about how it was because the country is racist, or some such drivel.
General Winfield Stuck
@jones:
You dream on wingnut. It’s what you do best.
PeakVT
How happy is your state (or congressional district)? Poor WV is dead last.
gwangung
Hell, yes. SATSQ.
How many Democrats tried to bring a gun to a presidential rally? And tried to pass it off as no big thing?
You’re not respecting our intelligence. Try harder, son; you can do it.
Warren Terra
@ Ailuridae, #32
Ouch. Doubly so “ouch” because the Spellcheck caught it, and I didn’t notice. And my comment was repetitive and missing an “if” in the section you quoted to boot.
I blame the lack of Preview, and of an Edit function. My own laziness and sloppiness have nothing to do with it. Nothing, I say.
PeakVT
Oops, wrong thread.
I find it amusing that people would yell at Dingell about euthanizing old people. Well, it would be amusing if health coverage for 50 million Americans wasn’t at stake.
Steeplejack
@Warren Terra:
Technically, it should be indecorous, just as it should be insanitary, not unsanitary. But, hey, I don’t think anyone missed your meaning.
Martin
I love how Obama is unafraid to pour acid on the wingnuts:
Not only does he want to kill your grandma (white grandma, that is) but he’s openly hoping your (presumably also white) kids turn out gay, unashamed, and unafraid. Apparently there’s nothing he isn’t planning to take from the white man.
Ash Can
@jones: My, my. Such big talk. Aren’t you precious.
Indylib
@PeakVT:
Somehow I’m not surprised. My state and my Congressional district are right in the middle. I live in Wisconsin, the land of the middle. The most radical arguments for the most part, that you see in this state are over how to cook your brats and whether Favre should have retired.
MBSS
i don’t really think jones was trying that hard. it just didn’t do anything for me. i’m apathetic. meh
MBSS
@ indylib
maybe we can spark up a debate over the relative merits of california and wisconsin cheese?
asiangrrlMN
@gwangung: You were much politer than I would have been. Kudos to you! I am way too fucking tired to deal with batshitcrazy right now.
@valdivia: I am really sorry that you are having to deal with this heartbreaking situation. Good luck to you and your family.
Hey, Broder! Sometimes, you have to just walk on by. Ask your genteel ladyfriend, Peggy Noonan.
I am so sick of the Villagers and their faux gentility.
Comrade Kevin
@Martin: and the local news, in Oakland, went straight from that to some jackhole at Civic Center Plaza in SF enumerating the ways that Milk was evil.
Indylib
@MBSS: lol Actually I have lived in both states in the last 3 years and despite what the cute talking cows have to say, there’s no contest. Wisconsin wins.
asiangrrlMN
@Indylib: Yes. Favre should stay retired and stay the fuck away from my Vikes. If the Vikings sign him, I will be rooting for the Packers.
MBSS
@ indylib
i have a friend from california that got his masters @ UW. i always razzed him about the cheese, but he held firm that the wisconsin variety was far superior.
this is making me crave some sharp cheddar.
Mnemosyne
@MBSS:
California cheese sucks. The end.
:-)
MBSS
does tunch like cheese?
or should the question be: how much cheese can tunch eat?
Indylib
@MBSS: Cali doesn’t even come within a bazillion miles of having the selection of cheese you can find in Wisconsin. I live in the Kenosha area, it’s not huge, about 165,000 people in the whole county I would guess, but right up the road we have a locally owned grocery store that has the hugest cheese sections I have ever seen. Note the plural. They have cheeses I never even heard of and they make every kind of foreign cheese I had ever heard of.
The first time my husband saw it he nearly swooned in ecstasy
@asiangrrlMN:
There’s not many people who want him back anymore, but they still argue about whether or not he should have retired when he did in the first place.
gwangung
@asiangrrlMN: Meh. These kids are pikers compared to Bender and Makewi. And THOSE two are pretty lame weak sauce; hell, one of them openly admits to throwing crappy arguments out there just to rile people up.
I mean, geez, it’s the very essence of a playground mentality to whine, “Well, you guys did it, too!” You’re admitting that you’re acting AT LEAST as badly–and that’s only if you’re being honest with yourself and others. BIg “if” there….
Martin
What do you guys have against our economy? I’m about to lay off a fuckton of public employees and if everyone bought a little California cheese, I could at least reduce that some.
Dogs love cheese as treats. You don’t even need to eat it yourself. Have some mercy on us.
JK
Glenn Beck has called Obama a racist, compared him to a nazi, and joked about poisoning Nancy Pelosi. WTF does this cocksucker have to say in order for Fox News to suspend him and force him to issue an on-air apology?
Indylib
@Martin: I highly doubt that I can buy California cheese here. If I had the money I’d come for a visit. I miss the restaurant choices in Pacific Beach. It’s the only place I’ve ever lived that you could eat good Mexican, seafood, Thai, Japanese, greasy American, hoity-toity French, had a huge selection of coffee houses and a hooka bar.
b-psycho
@JK:
Two words: “I’m gay”.
Martin
“Obama is right”
Quiddity
Broder didn’t have the courage to condemn Limbaugh. Instead, he quoted a Democrat who complained “that top House Republicans have not publicly repudiated Rush Limbaugh for his statements likening Obama’s health policies to those of the Nazis”.
Broder is lame-o.
MBSS
how about this guys. i’ve managed to link both cheese and glen beck.
@ jk
sargento has bailed on the glen beck show. his advertisers are going bye bye.
http://mediamatters.org/blog/200908110043
freelancer
@John Cole:
@Something Fabulous:
@JK:
As a media-aficionado and Jesuit-educated critical thinker, I have to admit complete ignorance, that I am totally in the woods on this particular subject.
Who the hell is Bob Somerby?
Did I miss a crucial voice in the national conversation in the last 5-10 years? Is this akin to not being able to differentiate between OBL and Saddam, or is this more nuanced?
Ash Can
Cheese curds! Woo hoo!
@JK: There’s the issue of sponsors ditching his pathetic ass. That could do it. At the end of the month the bosses might look at the numbers and say “Let’s dump this putz and give Sarah Palin his time slot. Tell her she can have a wardrobe budget and there’s no way she’ll turn us down.”
Mike P
@MikeJ:
Such a good book.
freelancer
No EDIT, hopefully the switch happens soon.
Evidently he’s a left of center thinker, and apparently a “professional stand-up comedian”. As a lifelong fan of stand up, if he had a gift for humor or spoken word, I would have come across him. Hell, I even have a couple Jello Biafra albums (and he managed to put the lefty stance and smirk into the anarchic cheering on of the loss of two space shuttles.)
If I want left of center from a Right background that makes sense, I’ll settle on Bill Hicks. I feel like I can safely ignore anything Bob Somerby says, or has ever had to say without much anxiety.
DougL (frmrly: Conservatively Liberal)
“Rupert Murdoch is a goatfucker who voted for Obama”
BDeevDad
Seems Palin knows what she’s talking about wrt Death Panels. Only problem was deaths were caused by her state government’s incompetence.
I apologize if this had been discussed.
Das Internetkommissariat
@gwangung:
Ah, come on you wussies.
I live in Belgium, between France and the Netherlands. There are shops here (Frommageries) that have more than 1000 (no typo) different kinds of cheeses in stock.
Puh-lease, Wisconsin, California. Talk about the blind arguing about color. Haha
Anne Laurie
But possibly not to the voting booth, if they’re like Katy Abram, who had ‘other priorities’, what with getting married and having her kids and all. One thing you have to grant the alte kackers waving their “Keep Govrnmint Out of My Medicare” signs — they were reliable voters, because voting was still a civic responsibility when they were growing up. Their children and grandchildren, on the other hand, will show up at the voting booth if there’s been enough noise during the 48 hours preceding that they can hope for a live local-news van to show up. And if it’s not raining, or too cold, and the kids don’t have a game scheduled, and none of the significant reality shows are running ‘important’ episodes. Oh, and if they can find the right precinct, and a parking spot not too far away before they give up & go home. I know it’s politically incorrect to hope that certain of our fellow citizens remain mired in their apathy, but gosh do the Stephen Krosticks and Katy Abrams make it hard to stay pious!
MikeJ
During and after the 2000 election he was the go to guy for documenting the media narrative and how everything was shoehorned into the bigger story they had already written.
Then he went nuts. I don’t know the details on that because I had stopped reading him long before. Every few months I’d check in and he’d gone further and further downhill.
He’s turned into what he used to rail against. He did, however, prove with geometric logic that the mess boys must have had an extra key to the mess locker, which they used to steal the strawberries.
Anne Laurie
@Das Internetkommissariat: Back when I lived in Michigan, the Michigan State University Dairy Department used to sell chocolate cheese. It was actually delicious, rather like a particularly rich and not-too-sweet fudge. I’m all in favor of international cheeses of practically any variety (shaming admission: bleu cheese allergy) but I’ll bet your frommageries don’t stock cheese flavored with the great and powerful American (well, Mayan) comestible known as chocolate!
** Atanarjuat **
@jones issued this warning:
Your ideas intrigue me, and I would like to subscribe to your newsletter.
-A
Das Internetkommissariat
@Anne Laurie:
Anne,
you might want to reconsider this.
What is Belgium famous for? Except the strong beers, French (actuallt Flemish) fries, and cheeses?
Uhm, Belgian chocolate?
There are hundreds of small chocolatieres in Brussels (I live in a town 15 miles away), every one of them trying to outmatch the others with more crazy ideas. That’s on top of Godiva, Leonidas, and Neuhaus, with their huge factories and multi-national choco-business.
We have EVERYTHING when it comes to chocolate. And by everything I mean everything. Combinations that make your head spin: Wasabi-pralinees, orgies of truffel-combinations (entire collections of different truffel-pralinee combinations are offered in autumn), …
My wife and me gained 10 pounds (well, I gained 15) in less than two years. We really tried to be disciplined, but how can you when in they bring trays and trays of freshly manufactured chocolate in front of your very eyes? When you cannot walk through the city without the seducing smells of cocoa and exotic ingredients and spices luring you into the small shops where the shopkeeper grins like the spider in the net because he KNOWS that you are done for.
Batocchio
My theory is the piece is decent because the events occurred before Broder decided that the answer to every situation was “bipartisanship,” meaning doing what the Republicans wanted.
Darkrose
@MBSS:
Good cheese comes from happy cows, and happy cows come from California.
What? I haven’t been brainwashed by the CA Dairy Council!
(And the truth is that the cows on campus don’t seem all that happy. Or unhappy. They just sort of stand there, come to think of it.)
Gravenstone
@Anne Laurie:
This.
I’m 45 and have been on the “pointy end” to varying degrees three times thus far in the last decade, with a fourth potentially looming on the misty horizon.
Ten years ago we lost my younger sister due to post surgical complications. Because of the risk involved in her case, she’d had a full consultation and comprehensive guidance on end of life options in case the unthinkable happened. It did, and a week later we were finally able to remove her from life support (something she’d been adamant about). I was among those holding her hand when she was finally declared.
A few years later, my grandmother’s health began to decline, slowly at first then increasingly more rapidly. My mother became her caregiver until it ultimately became too much for her and we had to look for in-patient hospice care since my grandmother had long ago chosen not to pursue aggressive life extending measures. Her own experiences with making those ulimtately fruitless choices for her second husband assured she’d thought that through. She would not accept a facility until I had toured it and given it my stamp of approval. She passed 3 weeks after entering the facility we chose, and to this day it feels like she was asking for my permission for her to let go.
Five months after her mother’s passing, my own mother was diagnosed with leukemia. The cruel twist was the illness was induced by her earlier chemo for breast cancer. The disease was untreatable due to her extremely poor cardiac response so we opted for in-home hospice. I acted as her primary care giver and she passed away in my arms barely a month later.
Because of my mother’s experiences and her stubborness I held Medical Power of Attorney for both her and my stepfather. He had also obtained an Advanced Directive with DNR provision which will be honored when such a time may come.
Every time I hear some wingut screech about “Death Panels” it takes all my self discipline not to render unto them severe and irreparable bodily harm. Disingenuous bastards can go fuck themselves with a rusty saw.
Anne Laurie
@Das Internetkommissariat: Oh, I know about Belgian chocolate, and have at least a few of my many extra pounds to prove it! And we have a sufficiency of wasabi-and-lavender specialty chocolatiers (although my tastes are not sufficiently refined to appreciate most of those blends as they’re said to deserve). But I’ll bet your snobby European eee-leets never thought of using chocolate as a cheese flavoring, unlike the proud Midwesterners who will put chocolate into anything. And then melt some cheese over the top of it, for that matter. I have never run into a chocolate-cheese-bacon combination, but I’m sure somebody at a Midwestern state fair is hawking the result even now…
Anne Laurie
@Gravenstone: Oh, goddess, I would post my last cheery little comment before reading this! Thank you for sharing your own difficult stories. And it’s too late here for me to be coherent enough to respond as you deserve, but I’m sure (unfortunately) that we will have other opportunities in the near future…
Gravenstone
@Anne Laurie:
Well, I know someone is hawking chocolate covered bacon at the WI State Fair (currently underway). it’s only a matter of time before the wrap the bacon around a cheese curd then deep fry the whole mess before dipping in chocolate to complete the Trifecta.
Gravenstone
@Anne Laurie: No worries, but thank you. I’ve made my “peace”, such as it is with the events of the last few years.
Das Internetkommissariat
@Anne Laurie:
Haha, you are right, nobody would think of something like that! And like Gravenstone said, I am sure there is going to be a deep-fried version soon. Where but in America could someone get the idea to deep-fry a twinkie?
geg6
In case Cole is reading this, I will be at Netroots Nation on Friday. A friend got tickets for one day and had an extra, so I took the day off even though our first billing due date is Friday and I am the only financial aid person on my campus. But the hell with it. The bursar’s office people have all taken vacation the last two weeks and left me holding the bag, so now it’s their turn. Should be fun. Will be seeing sessions with Specter and Sistak for sure. Not sure what else. Hoping Ezra or MattY or Marcy Wheeler.
El Cid
This morning Paul Begala helpfully reminds liberals to SHUT UP and LEAVE MAX BAUCUS ALOOOOONE because it vaguely reminds him of how FDR had to compromise to get the votes of segregationist Southern Democrats.
R-Jud
@Das Internetkommissariat:
Scotland.
kay
@El Cid:
I actually mostly like Paul Begala and it’s a good piece, but health insurance reform isn’t the same as Social Security.
The public option is itself an incremental step, and I’m not sure even that’s enough. The thing is, private health insurers are more powerful since the last time we tried this, not less.
This time they have 25% of Medicare (Medicare Advantage). They hadn’t sunk their claws into Medicare the last go-round, because that didn’t happen until Gingrich.
The co-op idea isn’t going to even make a dent. Hell, the public option is going to take (best estimate) FOUR percent of the private market, leaving them with 96% of a much bigger market (mandated buys) and they’re screaming their heads off that they can’t compete. You can’t negotiate with them. They’re unreasonable.
We’re not starting at zero, and we were with Social Security. Every gain was a net gain. Here we could lose some and win some with a weak bill, and the for-profit sector wants that equation to come out “net win” for them. No one was paying for retirement insurance prior to Social Security. We didn’t have to beg and plead for a public piece of an existing industry from a really profitable sector. We’re starting WAY back on health care, not at zero.
DBrown
@Gravenstone: I am so sorry – thank you for sharing those terribly difficult issues. To lose a sibling and one who was younger is a nightmare most of us will never experience until old age.
El Cid
@kay: I don’t find it a good piece, because the central argument doesn’t hold — the argument isn’t being made that without Max Baucus the bill cannot be passed. That would at least be an argument with which one could deal.
It’s a general argument that it should involve more compromise, and this argument is based on a bad parallel with FDR, who, in contrast, pushed for absolutely everything he could get and only compromised when it was politically necessary and pretty much could get it no other way.
It’s not about whether or not I like Begala — sometimes I do, and sometimes he has absolutely horrible, idiotic political instincts based on Beltway establishmentarian fetishism.
By the way — the origins of the original Social Security act lie with 1920s corporate leaders who decided they would prefer a ‘public option’ to having to fund all pensions directly. However, we have since been convinced to forget the corporate class side of Social Security’s origins and remember only the liberal, soci_alist, and labor inputs, because we have a propaganda system in place of sanity.
kay
@El Cid:
I think he’s looking for consensus because he sees that as a good political strategy, and you can make that argument. That reaching some mushy middle sort of spreads the heat. I don’t know if it’s true, because the opponents are so unhinged I don’t think it makes a bit of difference what’s actually in that bill, so I would just go for broke. If we’re making a political calculation, Republicans have so demonized even the mildest squishiest attempt at reform that, to my mind, there’s no possible political gain in compromising. They’ll back nothing, and they’ll screech about anything, and the media are right there with them. For moderate Democrats, any vote for any reform is fraught with risk. What’s IN the bill doesn’t matter a bit, and we already know that. Why not try to achieve some actual gains, if you’re going to be tarred as a grandma killer whatever the hell you put up?
JGabriel
Ailuridae:
Er, um, actually, the word creation rules for English make it an infinitely extensible language. ‘Undecorous’ is a valid formation. ‘Indecorous’ is more common and feels right because it applies a latinate prefix to a latinate word.
However, I’ve seen ‘undecorous’ used as well, but usually with a more vulgar connotation: for instance, at a dinner party, it would be indecorous to discuss the host’s extra-marital affair, but it would be undecorous to fling shit at the wall.
.
kay
@El Cid:
And, thanks for the industry side of SSI. I did not know that, because (!) I had completely forgotten that we used to get pensions. Radical!
El Cid
@kay: As you point out, no degree of sane ‘compromise’ will get the support of Republicans or health industry lobby Democrats, so there is no political strategy in making that a priority.
Second, compromise is being discussed specifically in non-strategic terms, i.e., a short term action by which you change the content of legislation based on a meta-discussion of the inherent value of ‘compromise’ rather than any specifically lain out legislative strategy of getting the strongest bill passed.
Finally, there appears to be little or no thinking for long-term political strategy, because the point at which this will matter politically for Democrats in the medium to long term will not be quoting Beltway fluffheads on ‘well at least we passed something’, but what Americans actually experience as the real world consequences of this bill.
It doesn’t matter what establishmentarian chattering head idiots think about this legislation — what matters for long term Democratic strategy is what if any noticeable difference will this program make in the lives of their constituents and if it is not noticed or if it is disliked, they will be politically punished SEVERELY.
If Begala had made a real argument based on the above, then it’d be something worth considering. Instead he’s basically saying that if you had listened to the liberals, FDR would have never compromised to pass anything, so f*** liberals who refuse to compromise and make a bill sh*ttier for no clear legislative or political necessity or payoff.
JGabriel
JK:
“Rush Limbaugh sucks!” would probably do it. So would, “I’m gay.”
Or, maybe, “I think the Civil Rights Act of 1965 was a good thing.”
Or, “Bill Clinton was a great president and never should have been impeached over a blow job. That’s just embarrassing.”
.
grumpy realist
Scotland == inventors of deep-fried Mars bars, I kid you not. My downstairs neighbor in London was a nutritionist in the NHS and just kept shaking her head over the difficulty of getting the average Scot to eat something that was not deep-fried / slathered in butter.
bob h
Obama is headed out West to do another Town Hall in gun-nut country.
The screamers are promsing a hot reception for him. I wish he would not go, but I wonder how the scenes of psychotics screaming at him will play. I think it will convince many that things have gone too far.
JGabriel
bob h:
Where? Linky please.
.
R-Jud
@grumpy realist:
On a recent trip to Edinburgh, we saw deep-fried pizza and deep-fried hamburgers (bun and all) on sale. Our arteries hardened just passing by the shop.
kay
I think the Broder piece is garbage. He starts with his eternal basic premise, that there are, somewhere, this vast group of Republicans in Congress who actually care about health care reform, and they’re only using this desperate unseemly tactic because they cannot effect change legislatively.
But that isn’t true. They don’t want to reform jack, unless “reform” is further tax cuts and further deregulation. Look at their proposals. Listen to what they’re saying.
To believe Broder, you have to believe Republicans have some centrist goal, but they’re using a dishonest tactic to get there, and the fact is, they don’t.
David Broder writes columns about himself. They only apply to him.
slippytoad
@jones:
On Sadly No!, a well-known Republitroll posted this sometime prior to the November 2008 election. He has had it repeatedly shoved in his face
I would just like to point out that I am bookmarking your comment. Enjoy.
Bulworth
@Steve:
I know others have made this same point, but I can’t help also noting that the same level of anger, fist-shaking, yelling, placard-wielding, pushing and shoving, apocalyptic threats, etc strikes me as very similar to pictures and accounts of the Civil Rights Era (which I really only know through books and teevee since I was a bit too young to remember it).
Legalize
In related news, the President’s “coalition” is set to begin airing $12 million worth of television spots in favor of reform. Broder’s bewilderment with winger behavior leads me to believe that the president’s folks timed this well. We’ve had about 2 weeks of irrational screeching and lying from opponents. Lawrence O’Donnell interviewed the toilet paper lady last night and it was clear as a fucking bell that she had no clue what she was talking about. Zero. And Lawrence appeared to put a little doubt in her mind with his line of calm, rational, almost Socratic questioning.
Hopefully “coalition” ads will have a similar calming effect on the squishy middle and even the folks who are scared but not necessarily inherently ideological. I believe that the election of Obama indicates that people ultimately want sensible, calm leadership in tough times. After the barking and bullshit has worn thin – i.e. NOW, and even the Broders of the world have had enough, the President fills the void with his machine and gives them the full court press for a month or so.
Rope a dope, bitches.
burnspbesq
@jones:
Please check yourself into a mental health facility ASAP. You’re delusional.
Shawn in ShowMe
For the 47 million uninsured and 25 million underinsured, anything resembling a public option would be a net gain.
valdivia
@asiangrrlMN:
thanks for your thoughts. we are all coping which at this point is all we can do.
Molly
@JK: “Favorite Instant Celebrity Wingnuts”
Orly Taitz is by far my favorite of them all. She’s pure camp.
Molly
@valdivia: “I am dealing with my grandmother’s end of life issues right now and it has been the ugly messy futile type because a family member cannot let go and she left no directive. ”
This is SUCH a difficult thing. My thoughts are with you.
We had the same thing with my 82 year-old grandmother. It was right after Teri Schiavo, and some wingnut relatives considered letting her go as a capitulation. I finally got enough, and we sat down and had a very serious conversation about why they were so determined to keep a suffering woman alive instead of sending her to the rest and piece she deserves, and that they BELIEVE in. What is it about death they seem to fear so much, if they believe death is a reunion with Christ?
They backed down. She went peacefully. I miss her, but I am glad she is at peace now.
ChrisB
@Quiddity: And Broder choose to quote Palin talking about how Obama’s plan was “downright evil” instead of taking her to task for lying about death panels.* He then went on to use her quote about sticking to the issues in a manner that would make Palin seem wise and conciliatory if one didn’t know better.
This, in addition to the point made by others above that broder has nothing to say about policy, only that there is a lack of decorum.
*Caveat: I don’t read Broder so I don’t know if Broder criticized Palin elsewhere for her death panel comments. Somehow, though, I doubt it.
oh really
I assume the improvement Broder refers to would be satisfied not by improvements in health care quality, delivery, or cost, but much more importantly by being something that Republicans could happily support. Of course, that would mean poorer quality, delivery, and cost, but since bipartisanship is the greatest good known to humanity there is no price too high to pay to achieve it.
REN
@wag
Thank you for being the voice of reason with these confused people. Sometimes the elderly are easily confused as they do not view the world as younger people do. They often don’t keep up with change well.My own mother who is a very intelligent and caring individual[ she is 83] was driven to tears trying to figure out if Medicare Plan D was worthwhile for them.I will say however that she scoffs at this death panel nonsense. Counseling people confused by political BS is probably not a part of your job description,and I know doctors are extremely busy people, so I commend you for taking the time to do so.
@ Gravenstone
Thats a lot of grief for a short period of time and my heart goes out to you. We all have to go but watching loved ones go is the worst life has to offer.
asiangrrlMN
Wisconsin cheese is far superior to CA cheese. There is no argument on this one.
To everyone struggling with end-of-life decisions, my heart goes out to you. I am so frustrated watching these health care reform ‘debates’; I can’t imagine what I’d do if I were in your shoes.
asiangrrlMN
Footwear got me again!
Wisconsin cheese is far superior to CA cheese. There is no argument on this one.
To everyone struggling with end-of-life decisions, my heart goes out to you. I am so frustrated watching these health care reform ‘debates’; I can’t imagine what I’d do if I were in your boots.
oh really
@REN:
I think you are absolutely correct and point out something that should never be overlooked. Even people who are intelligent and have been well-informed throughout their lives can face difficulties when they reach a certain age.
Of course, this is also a reason why a consultation about end of life issues with one’s own personal physician is such a good idea. And it makes the disinformation and scaremongering of the Wingers all the more appalling.
asiangrrlMN
@Gravenstone: Your story really saddens me. My deepest condolences to you and your family. May you find moments of peace here and there.
Augustine
@Seebach:
And, chances are, if you remind him he’s human, he’s going to want a cookie to go with it