Here is my letter to "This Week"

[Sick_of_Rethuggery]

George S. really stepped over the line this past Sunday, in almost shouting at Nancy Pelosi about "the Democrats' lack of an SS plan".
I finally got around to sending ABC a letter regarding this:


Nancy Pelosi repeated 4 times that the Democrats' plan for Social Security was (a) repeal the tax cuts for the wealthiest (b) stop the deficit spending which comes directly out of the SS Trust Fund and (c) drop the idiotic privitization plan which makes the problem worse, not better.

And you kept repeating, most churlishly towards the end of your interview with her, as if you were annoyed you couldnt goad her with a false bait and charge, "what is the Democrats' plan"? What, you think a plan is a plan only if (a) it comes from the Rethugs and (b) it destroys that which it is trying to "fix"?

Stop comforting the comfortable (those in power: namely, the Rethugs) and afflicting the already afflicted (the Democrats, who incidentally do not control anything and the poor, who incidentally also do not control anything).

Your job is to question those in power to keep them from overreaching; not to collude with them and dupe the public.

Radha

[Mr_Spock]

1. Nice letter - too bad an "ass kicking" doesn't fit into an envelope

He needs his ass kicked for the terrible job he's been doing lately.

[Clark2008]

4. You could always just email him a can of Whoop Ass

[swag]

2. George's rudeness wasn't his only problem that day

He also used bullshit data and a bullshit chart

from Matthew Yglesias

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2005_05_01.php#005600

"As I said before, I was moving furniture yesterday morning when the Sunday chat shows were on, but a couple of emailers have described to me a chart that went up on This Week which George Stephanopoulos used to challenge Nancy Pelosi. Assuming my correspondents are describing the chart accurately, it was what I would describe in terms that aren't appropriate for a family blog. To make a long story short, it compared benefits under the Pozen plan to the benefits people will get if we do nothing to change Social Security and concluded that almost everybody will get more money under Pozen/Bush.

Now since the Pozen plan cuts benefits for most people and leaves benefits unchanged for others, you may be wondering how that could be possible. Well, it's possible because for the "do nothing" scenario they were using benefits payable rather than scheduled benefits. In other words, it's how much you can get if we assume that the Trust Fund runs out of oney in 2041 and benefits thereafter need to be cut down to what can be paid for out of current tax revenues. As you might be able to guess, the cuts are not small. But since the Pozen plan achieves solvency without any changes to the retirement age or any tax increases, how could it possibly cut benefits by less than just doing nothing and then cutting benefits when the Trust Fund runs out of cash?

Good question. The answer is that Pozen's cuts are smaller because the Pozen plan doesn't achieve solvency. It only gets you 70 percent there. With the modifications Bush is propsing, it gets you about 50 percent of the way there.

So what the chart proves is that a plan that only gets you halfway to solvency can be more generous than a plan that gets you all the way there. Which is obvious. And a rather stupid thing to be pointing out. But it only looks stupid if you bother to inform your readers that you're making a pointless apples and oranges comparison. Which, it seems, ABC didn't."

[Sick_of_Rethuggery]

6. I know...

I noticed this too, but I wanted to catch him at least on the larger point -- I was throwing stuff at the TV that day, he was being that obtuse purposefully and petulantly.

We need to have a channel that values rational behavior, if nothing else...

[swag]

7. I know you know.

I forgot to mention that I liked your letter very much.

[Sick_of_Rethuggery]

8. :-)

Thanks, I wasn't "asking for it" though ;-) (fishing for a compliment, I mean :-)) -- "I know" was just my seamless :-) segue...

[TheFarseer]

10. Well, that is one way to make it solvent

keep taxing people but don't give them any retirement benefits :eyes:

[jojo54]

3. This is a good letter!

I've about had it with George lately. Seems like the past few months, he's been giving the Rethugs too much credit for nothing. I'm beginning to wonder just who is in his back pocket.

[callous taoboy]

5. Excellent! She did say, "You're not listening," didn't she?

It was a weird exchange. I thought to myself, this fellow is hard of hearing.

[Dinger]

9. I Said He Turned, Didn't I? (nt)

[prairierose]

11. Great letter...I stopped watching all of these shows...

because I couldn't stand the hypocrisy of the corporate media any longer.

[Sick_of_Rethuggery]

14. I keep wanting to turn it off...

and did too, successfully, for about 4 months. But my other need to monitor them gets the better of me sometimes.

I keep thinking we should be able to organize a mass "turn off these idiots" movement that would actually have a perceptible impact.

Does anyone here think if I went up to the capitol and camped out there with a huge "refuse to participate in this Rethug scam", we might be able to get the message out to the 50 to 60 million people who are completely disgusted with this Rethug/M$M axis, and get us/them all to act?

Edited: to add axis...

[Mr_Spock]

12. How do you email these criminals - I can't find email addy on site

I can't find the email address for ABC news This Week on the ABC news site - what is it?

[Sick_of_Rethuggery]

13. Here is a direct link...

http://abcnews.go.com/ThisWeek/story?id=64596