Category: Politics

Color me unmoved by the latest accusation of police state thuggery by the White House.  The passage in question being from a White House web site:

There is a lot of disinformation about health insurance reform out there, spanning from control of personal finances to end of life care. These rumors often travel just below the surface via chain emails or through casual conversation. Since we can’t keep track of all of them here at the White House, we’re asking for your help. If you get an email or see something on the web about health insurance reform that seems fishy, send it to flag@whitehouse.gov.

Knowing that 99% of politics is trying to put just the right amount of polish on the turd, I can’t exactly claim to be surprised or outraged the right would make try to make hay out of this.  But this looks to me like White House public relations people looking for information on what arguments the other side is using so they can come up with talking points.  Also an act of polishing up the turd.

The way it’s being painted on some right leaning blogs, you’d think the White House is collecting a list of people, so they can send out the ambulance driving secret police to gurney the opposition into sufficiently socialized hospitals, where they’ll give them continuously lousy and insufficient care until they expire, or go mad.  Sorry, not buying it.

Not that I have any love for Obama’s health care plans, and I certainly have no desire to help the White House come up with talking points to try to sell the public tickets on this health care Titanic, but this is far from an “all good Nazis turn in the enemies of the state” kind of thing, and it’s not serious to suggest that’s the case.

I’ve heard more than a few people say things like “Chris Christie doesn’t stand a chance.  That state is so blue it’s bordering on ultraviolet.”  But registration advantages don’t dictate everything, especially in midterms.  This article talking about the race in Virginia offers a prime example of that:

Creigh Deeds is not doing well. But it’s not like he’s bleeding Obama supporters- in fact the 5% of McCain supporters whose votes he’s picking up is actually equal to the 5% of Obama’s that McDonnell is picking up.

The problem is all in who’s motivated and planning to turn out- McCain supporters are at a considerably higher rate than Obama’s, and that means a healthy McDonnell lead.

It’s all about who turns out to vote, and Republicans ought to be powerfully motivated to send a message to Obama this fall, and in 2010.  It’s going to be a long four years otherwise.

At the tailend of the campaign, once Pennsylvania had really started swinging blue, audio of Barack Obama threatening to bankrupt the coal industry with his energy policies was released.  Unfortunately, it was far too late to use in any meaningful way.  (While Pennsylvania’s economy isn’t quite funded by coal as much as some would assume, there is clearly a strong connection to coal in this state.)  It turns out that someone uncovered it on the San Francisco Chronicle website where it sat for eight months.

Once again, video now gets play from an SEIU healthcare forum in 2007 where Barack Obama speculates on how his healthcare plans will really just be a transition to getting people off of employer-based private healthcare and onto a public plan.  This video has been online for two years and four months.  My question is whether the GOP had that clip or not.  If they did, was there a plan to ever use it?  Because now would be a great time considering all of these tea parties keep breaking out at Congressional town hall events.  This is a great scary clip video that illustrates the ultimate goal of many of the proposals in Congress.  I can understand if they were sitting on the clip until a certain strategic point, but given the coal example, I have little faith in their research results.  Do we need to send more interns down to DC to help them out?

Via Breda we have this controversy that seems to be based on the fact that certain people on the right seem to be rather shocked that the Secret Service protects the President with guns, and tends to roll with an impressive amount of firepower.   The accusation here seems to be that the Secret Service guy muzzled the crowd, and we even have a very grainy photo as proof.  I’m not sure I agree with Breda that this is different than the Counter Assault Team.  In fact, I tend to believe that’s what people in the crowd saw.  This kind of firepower isn’t new either.  Look at this video from the 1981 assassination attempt against President Reagan:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yt6Bcbkk1FY[/youtube]

The Secret Service agent who suddenly springs fourth an Uzi submachine gun is one of the iconic images of the Reagan assassination attempt.  I don’t think this is a good example of Obama’s administration being out of control.  In fact, I think it’s a bit hysterical.  Just because it comes from people on the right doesn’t make it any less so.

I want the Secret Service to do a good job of protecting Obama, and everyone who values their gun rights should feel the same way.   The Gun Control Act of 1968 was largely spurned by the assassination of Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy.  New Jersey’s draconian licensing laws date back to 1966, only two years after the assassination of President Kennedy.  Massachusetts passed licensing and registration for long guns in the wake of Bobby Kennedy’s assassination.  The Brady Act arose out of the assassination attempt on President Reagan.

Assassinations are a major impetus for federal gun control.  If the Secret Service is running heavily armed with President Obama, I don’t have a problem.  If they were indeed muzzling a crowd, that’s another matter, but I don’t think anyone has provided any proof that was the case.  What seems more likely is we’re seeing accusations from someone on the right who is hysterical about guns (we all know they exist) or someone just looking for a reason, any reason, to make Obama look bad, and has decided to manufacture a controversy where none really exists.  There are certainly examples out there one can use to make President Hope and Change look bad, but I doubt this is one of them.