On the bright side, the right is losing audience as fast as the left is gaining it, so the country is becoming less stupid as a result. Those of us who tuned in to Keith Olbermann last night were treated to a fist-pumping point-by-point destruction of Bill-Oh Really’s historical revisionism that President Obama was wrong when he said Winston Churchill never tortured.
Yes, Bill-Oh, you are WRONG, you fool; ignorant lying sophist.
Sunday, on This Week with Georgie Boy, the unctuous George F. Swill declared imperiously that “more than 80% of Americans are more than satisfied with their health care plans.”
WRONG again, Swill, and YOU KNOW IT. The FCC ought to have a voluntary truth-in-commentary rule that would place the political chattering class on time delay so that every time they utter an untruth the viewer would see a freeze frame with a rolling text box at the bottom displaying the factual information. I propose that it be called WINGERFAX.
As soon as Swill makes the statement, “more than 80% of Americans are more than satisfied with their health care plans,” the screen would be frozen and the following rolling text displayed at the bottom:
According to the respected Gallup Poll (12/4/08) on Americans’ attitudes toward U.S. healthcare:
“The net result of these observations about the way U.S. healthcare works is that Americans generally believe the system is highly troubled: 14% say it is "in a state of crisis" and 59% think it has "major problems." Only 26% believe it has minor problems and a slight 1% say it does not have any problems.”
What’s most galling about this smug little jerk with a bow tie is that as the father of a special needs child who was never denied the best healthcare available, one would expect him to have some empathy for the uninsured, or at least, to accurately and honestly discuss the state of healthcare. But this is by no means the one and only time Swill has lied: as with all right wingers it's a consistent pattern with him.
- In 1980, Swill helped Ronald Reagan prepare for his presidential debate while posing as a neutral or objective journalist. There were similar conflicts of interest involving his associations with Conrad Black and Bob Dole.
- More recently, in a 2008 column Swill claimed China and Cuba had partnered to drill for oil off the Florida coast. That statement was false, and Swill published a retraction, but not before Dick Cheney and John Boehner repeated it.
- In 2009 Swill disseminated false information about the effects of global warming by claiming that, "[a]ccording to the University of Illinois' Arctic Climate Research Center, global sea levels now equal those of 1979." The Arctic Climate Research website of U of I fired back: "We do not know where George Will is getting his information, but our data shows that on February 15, 1979, global sea ice area was 16.79 million sq. km and on February 15, 2009, global sea ice area was 15.45 million sq. km. Therefore, global sea ice levels are 1.34 million sq. km less in February 2009 than in February 1979."
And so, Swill's off-the-cuff "80%" remark is simply the first salvo as he (and I'm sure, Bill-Oh) aim to destroy President Obama's efforts to provide healthcare for all Americans. Their campaign will be one of lies, misinformation, and slander to swiftboat healthcare. (Yes, it's true; the swiftboaters are baaack and they're the anti-healthcare storm troopers.) Anything for a buck. It's in their DNA.
Senator Edward Kennedy, who is battling brain cancer and whose son lost a leg to cancer, dedicated his entire career to giving Americans universal healthcare, precisely because of these experiences. He said he and his son are alive today because they were privileged to get the very best healthcare available. But millions of our citizens are not so fortunate, and that’s wrong.
For Senator Kennedy, healthcare is a right, NOT a privilege.
Therein lies the difference between liberals and conservatives. Let's roll.
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