"And who is against Tiny Tim?"

Look, I'm all for the S-CHIP expansion.  But let's be clear: the hyperbole that's coming out in the wake of Bush's veto of the bill, characterizing Bush as a child-hating meanie on par with Scrooge, Mr. Potter in It's A Wonderful Life, and worse... well, that just seems more than a little unnecessary.

This ad, for instance, strikes me as simply shameless.

Now, really.  The reality is that there might be a face-saving compromise here, but Democrats sense they've got the upper hand and Bush has shown so little good faith as a negotiator that he's in no position to make a lot of demands.  Plus, he's simply wrong about making the issue of this bill a combination of cost and entitlement.  Almost every serious examination of the GOP talking points - that it would attract high earners, pull kids out of private insurance and the like - has called them bogus.  Republican governors (and mayors) want it.  A wide swath of Republicans in Congress voted for it (in the Senate, the voting margin would override Bush's veto, so the only question now is in the House).  The point is, this "Bush hates kids (and puppies, and Santa Claus)" rhetoric is just unnecessary.

But hey, it's fun, so what's the problem?  Well, read on.

It's no accident, really, that this brouhaha takes place on the heels of another partisan contretemps - the neverending fallout of September's Iraq reporting, and the MoveOn "BetrayUs"  ad.  Over the past week, liberal activists have settled on (after some heavy searching) going after Rush Limbaugh for some tossed off remarks about "phony soldiers" on his radio program. Limbaugh says he meant to refer specifically to a few celebrated cases of individuals (such as Jessie Macbeth and Scott Thomas Beauchamp) whose own veracity undermines their criticisms of the military and the war, but his initial comments can be seen as casting a wider net.  Now, with Congresspeople pursuing motions praising and condemning Limbaugh (who benefits, really, from any sort of attention), the whole ugly mess steams away on the edge of the news, sure to bubble up once again when something passes.

At base, the Limbaugh attack and the (avoidable, I still say) Petraeus affair underline the anger liberals feel when being painted as unpatriotic or traitorous for questioning what we are doing in Iraq.  There's a sense among lefties - especially reflected in the Netroots - that conservatives are allowed to get away with all sorts of hyperbole that liberals cannot. And the final straw for many were a pair of votes in the House and Senate that forced Democrats to condemn MoveOn.

Personally, I think Limbaugh is a poor choice for attack right now - there are others who can be singled out much more clearly  as pushing the "all lefties are traitors" type rhetoric.  Limbaugh, on his radio show, is generally more slippery than that - and though his widely supported attempts to slip away from the implications of what he said may be a bit much, it's still a slender reed however one looks at it.

But the larger point is this - if we're planning to say that Conservatives cross a line when they call the left Traitors Who Hate America, God, Mom and Apple Pie for not supporting the war... then we're not on especially solid ground turning around and saying that President Bush Hates Kids, Puppies, Mom Baseball and Apple Pie for Vetoing S-CHIP. By continuing this notion that the best political play is hyperbole that paints your opponent as un-American, we're adding to the legitimacy of the attacks on liberal patriotism.

I don't think Bush hates kids, even poor kids.  I think he's wrong to veto S-CHIP. And I think the distinction matters.

Comments

[Redstar]

So basically you're advocating for taking the high road? That's one option...that doesn't mean there isn't room for mudslinging at the same time. We've got all sorts of maneuvers, and the larger point is we need to pull them all out right now!

Last week, when we were storming Vitter re: S1668, we had the:
a) "this is people's lives you're talking about!" strategy,
b) the "how can we help you make informed decisions?" strategy,
c) the "You're not correct on the facts" strategy (me, and it sounds like the one you support)
and
d) "We're not going to take this hyperbole, anti-poor, conservative, inaccurate b.s. from you" strategy.

All those, combined with our door-to-door visits of many of his colleagues and opponents, is starting to have an effect. I don't think there should be one over the other, necc. We just need to coordinate these efforts.

Frankly, there's a diff. b/w saying "hate" and "doesn't care." The latter could apply in the sense that the lives of a certain population of kids is so totally off his radar screen that he effectively does not "care" about them. There is a relatively thin argument to be made there (and I imagine cultural sociologists and social psychologists could do it best).

But I say, let this rhetoric fly around, to garner public attention (he did ignore both public and bi-partisan support on this one, people have a right to call him all kinds of names right now after that imperious move), while others do the hard work of lining up the House votes, if possible, negotiating a compromise solution, and finding other ways at the state and local level to provide healthcare to these kids and families.

I know you're specialty is not getting angry, trying to be the levelheaded one on the sidelines (while I am the enraged one also often on the sidelines), but c'mon.

[weboy]

I think what I'm advocating is not so much the "high road", but, as you point out yourself, the road where we discuss the facts, not the hyperbole. I think the work you're doing on Gulf relief is admirable because you're not running around with the "Bush hates black people on the Gulf Coast" line, you're making the case for the support that's desperately needed. My point is there's an obvious, winning case to be made for S-CHIP: it works, the states like it, and kids who wouldn't get care otherwise are now covered. Expanding it is a good idea. Just that brief explanation, though, is worlds away from the "he doesn't care about kids" argument already flying around as a subsitute for serious debate. If we want serious debate, then let's get serious. And if we're not going to be serious, then we can't get mad - as with the "phony soldiers" bit - when such cheap theater is also used against us. High road? Not what I need. Just a good, factual debate, please.

[Redstar]

I hate to break this to you, you've managed to come so far in life already, I can't imagine what this will do to your sunny world view, but people aren't interested in facts. Unless, of course, they're sweetened or salted to entice consumption.

Bush hates poor kids? Why, if he'd expand SCHIP, he wouldn't have to deal with them begging on his doorstep on Xmas Eve, or crowding out the Americans he's encouraged to fill the e/r's, because then these kids would have coverage provided by a buffer of satisfied state and local officials preventing Bush from ever having to interact with them. And everybody wins! :)

Seriously though, if you're saying you want to reframe the debate and that this is not the way to do it, that's a different story. My point is that some people are working on facts, and if this hyperbole gets more people to pay attn to those facts, then all the better. For example, it's easier to negotiate with Vitter over legis. facts when he knows pp are watching him because of the spectacle of 30 constituents descending on his office one afternoon in the midst of accompanying media attention from all sides, and a public restatement of the factual issues by his colleagues/opponents.

I guess you think this drama substitutes for debate, whereas I think they can go hand in hand.

[Redstar]

PS: Personally, I'm glad to see we're fighting back with a little high-stakes drama. You're the one who engages with the pp at Malkin and Lucianne; why you all up on your own team's case all of a sudden? Those others deal in nothing but empty, ludicrous rhetoric, and you engage with it all the time!

[Redstar]

Again, I'd never have the Senate audience for my facts without the race/class/injustice-inspired ire of my colleagues that got us up to DC in the first place.