Watching the Bus Plunge (re: Right Wing attacks on Frost family)

[marmar]

from OurFuture.org:



Watching the Bus Plunge
Submitted by David Neiwert on October 15, 2007 - 4:30pm.


A normal person couldn't be blamed for enjoying a certain grim satisfaction watching movement conservatives go careering over the cliff with their bizarre attempt to smear 12-year-old Graeme Frost. Sure, it's fun to watch Michelle Malkin's pants go down in flames. Who wouldn't enjoy that?

But it's worth remembering that the stakes here run deeper than simple takedowns. There are two serious issues at stake here: how we Americans see our relationship to the government, and how we handle our relationships with each other -- especially those we disagree with.

There are signs that even a few movement conservatives can see the ground coming up. The Wall Street Journal's editorial page on Sunday signaled that it might be time to shut down the controversy -- a sure sign they know it's gone badly:


While that was a political stunt, the Washington habit of employing "poster children" is hardly new. But the Internet mob leapt to some dubious conclusions and claimed the Frost kids shouldn't have been on Schip in the first place.

As it turns out, they belonged to just the sort of family that a modest Schip is supposed to help.


Not that this has particularly slowed the yowling mob pursuing the Frost family, including a defiant Michelle Malkin, who already has pretty much self-immolated in leading this fiasco. Indeed, as their bus plunge gains in velocity, they seem to be ratcheting up the ugliness a notch, with comments like these surfacing among right-wing bloggers at sites like RedState:


If federal funds were required could die for all I care. Let the parents get second jobs, let their state foot the bill or let them seek help from private charities.

I would hire a team of PIs and find out exactly how much their parents made and where they spent every nickel. Then I’d do everything possible to destroy their lives with that info.


Even more disturbingly, as ThinkProgress reports, for this kind of rhetoric, RedState got a big thumbs-up from the White House:


Rather than distancing themselves from the smear campaign, the White House today decided to embrace RedState and reward the blog with an official White House posting.


In a post entitled “Democrats’ SCHIP Budget Gimmick,” Nicholas Thompson, a staffer in the White House’s Office of Strategic Intiatives, rallied the conservative troops around Bush’s hard-line stance, reminding them that “we are less than one week” from Congress’ veto override vote. ...........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://commonsense.ourfuture.org/watching_bus_plunge?tx=3

[AuntPatsy]

1. Until these fools get outed for their attacks on this poor family this cannot be forgotten.

I honestly don't understand the time the people take up to aid in destroying families instead of using their time for actual worthy causes, too much to ask I guess. Says alot about what we are dealing with.