Tweety: Teabaggers @ Town Hall Meelings "like Iran!..like the streets of Tehran!"

[Amerigo Vespucci]

It didn't take long for the Villagers to fall in line, did it? Reality has no meaning. I'm not sure why Rush Limbaugh is getting nervous about the astroturfers. He's saying the teabagger protests are not bought and paid for: "It's not ginned up, it's genuine. It's real." Can't he see that they are falling right in line? Matthews certainly has.

Digby: The Village Idiots Fall In Line

And here's the way the overarching media narrative that supports it gets set:

Matthews: What do you make of this firestorm that's going on across the country. We've got pictures from Texas and Long Island and Philly. Every time a congressman calls a town meeting now, the people show up and it's like -- I don't know --- it's like Iran! It's like the streets of Tehran!

Michael Smerconish: People are hot. I sense it in the phone calls that I get every day. I think they're very nervous about what's going to come out of this debate about national health care, and Chris if I've heard once in the last couple of days, I've heard it 50 times: "if they can't get cash for clunkers straight, what in the world are they going to do with my national health insurance?"

Matthews: You mean they won't get the numbers right?

Smericonish: Yeah they won't get the numbers right and it smacks of bureaucratic ineptitude, that the federal government has blown through this money so quickly on a plan that seems so straighforward.

I also think that what going on is that many people don't understand the elements of this debate, so what do they know? They know that they have health insurance and they know that this enormous price tag is being assigned for the 45 million or so who don't have it. And frankly what they saying is, why can't we just write them a check and pay for it. It sounds like it could be less expensive.

http://crooksandliars.com/john-amato/tweety-promotes-astroturfed-town-hall-p

[PA Democrat]

1. Yeah, right Tweety. Especially when the police open fire on them, tear gas them and haul

the rest off to jail.:eyes:

[sandnsea]

2. We are going to just write a check and pay for it

That's the plan. Why are these people so fucking stupid. We'll write a check and add some to Medicaid, who are at the povery level and should have it already. We'll write a check and subsidize some to buy insurance, if they want. And we'll write a check and subsidize others to buy a public plan, if they want.

Tweety is listening to his brother again. He needs to get to another part of Philly or something.

[tularetom]

3. Whoever "Michael Smerconish" (obviously a fake name) is he has his head up his ass

"If they can't get cash for clunkers straight"? WTF? Cash for clunkers is perhaps the most well received, successful government program of the last 20 years. The American people love it. The only ones not "getting it straight" are the idiot gop senators and congressassholes who keep trying to fuck with it.

[Touchdown]

5. It's a meme started by Steve Douchy of Fox and Friendless

It goes through the whorelitzer. Jon Stewart walked us through it Mon. night.

[vademocrat]

4. The cash for clunkers argument makes me furious -

The democrats original bill called for $4 billion - the rethugs fought against the entire program and the program was cut to $1 billion. If the democrats had just IGNORED the rethugs there'd be no $$ issue right now.

So using this as an example of government failing is absurd. : "Smericonish: Yeah they won't get the numbers right and it smacks of bureaucratic ineptitude, that the federal government has blown through this money so quickly on a plan that seems so straightforward."

I want someone to point out that it's the party of NO that caused the the supposed bureaucratic ineptitude.

Arrggghh - this is why I don't watch much of the chattering class anymore - they don't even care about facts, just what they can stir up....

[zbdent]

7. a suspected talking point is the one ...

"Well, I owned the car/truck for years, but I insured it part time because I stored it ... blah blah blah ..."

"I had to show proof that I had insurance on it for x amount of time ..."

complaining because there's hoops you have to go through ...

but then, if there weren't any restrictions, I could see dealers who take their trade-in clunkers in the back and write them up as having been traded in for the $4500, and defrauding the govt. out of the money ... and thus, of course, it would have been Obama's/Congress'/Dems' fault for not having any oversight ...

[BlooInBloo]

6. As usual: what Digby said.

[BlooInBloo]

8. That's just silly...

Everybody knows it's like North Korea.

[SemiCharmedQuark]

9. Matthews is an asshole. His "debates" on racial issues have sealed his fate.