Posted on 10/12/2007 6:58:46 AM PDT by kristinn
Two weeks ago, the Democratic response to President Bush’s weekly radio address was delivered by a 12-year-old, Graeme Frost.
SNIP
What followed should serve as a teaching moment.
SNIP
Soon after the radio address, right-wing bloggers began insisting that the Frosts must be affluent because Graeme and his sister attend private schools (they’re on scholarship), because they have a house in a neighborhood where some houses are now expensive (the Frosts bought their house for $55,000 in 1990 when the neighborhood was rundown and considered dangerous) and because Mr. Frost owns a business (it was dissolved in 1999).
You might be tempted to say that bloggers make unfounded accusations all the time. But we’re not talking about some obscure fringe. The charge was led by Michelle Malkin...
SNIP
All in all, the Graeme Frost case is a perfect illustration of the modern right-wing political machine at work, and in particular its routine reliance on character assassination in place of honest debate. If service members oppose a Republican war, they’re “phony soldiers”; if Michael J. Fox opposes Bush policy on stem cells, he’s faking his Parkinson’s symptoms; if an injured 12-year-old child makes the case for a government health insurance program, he’s a fraud.
Meanwhile, leading conservative politicians, far from trying to distance themselves from these smears, rush to embrace them. And some people in the news media are still willing to be used as patsies.
SNIP
I don’t know about you, but I think American children who need medical care should get it, period. Even if you think adults have made bad choices — a baseless smear in the case of the Frosts, but put that on one side — only a truly vicious political movement would respond by punishing their injured children.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
“Soon after the radio address, right-wing bloggers began insisting that the Frosts must be affluent because Graeme and his sister attend private schools (they’re on scholarship)”
I read they were PARTLY on scholarship.
“I don’t know about you, but I think American children who need medical care should get it, period.”
They already do, moron. The S-CHIP program already exists...Bush vetoed an EXPANSION to include “kids” up to age 25.
Gawd, the left is unbearable.
>I don’t know about you, but I think American children who need medical care should get it, period.
I guess the author of the piece has never heard of Medicaid.
Where is poor Max Cleland? I expect to see him carrying a sign that says, “Bush Hates Kids”.
Having seen Krugman cited by so many leftwingnuts of various stripes over the years, I’m very familiar with his ‘prognostications’ since 2000.
When somebody can point out one that turned out to be true, ping me. Til then, he remains a waste of oxygen.
Maybe Krugman should ask why these Baltimore Democrats send their kids to private schools.
And no one asks the questions of how ALL 4 children got private school scholarships.
Point is, this family has not made health care insurance their main priority...so why should society make it for them?
The liberal journalists have certainly picked up their talking points from the DNC.
“If service members oppose a Republican war, they’re ‘phony soldiers’” Moron, the people he refered to were never service members or even if, liars about their service.
“if Michael J. Fox opposes Bush policy on stem cells, he’s faking his Parkinson’s symptoms;” that was never the claim, the claim was he stopped taking his meds so his symptoms were worse to elicit an emotional response from people. He admitted he did this.
“if an injured 12-year-old child makes the case for a government health insurance program, he’s a fraud.” he made the case against it - it’s a program for poor people and he’s not poor. the fraud was the deceptive depiction of his families’ circumstances. Kind of like Jennifer Bush:
Hillary Clinton, who helped turn Jennifer into a national political prop for health care reform in 1994, must be very grateful that we’ve all forgotten the poor little girl from Coral Springs.
Dropped by the family’s health insurer, out of a job, and in allegedly dire financial straits, Mrs. Bush poignantly appealed for government relief from the burden of Jennifer’s mysterious illness.
But who was strangling whom? Several years before Hillary deified Mrs. Bush and elevated Jennifer to poster-child stardom, suspicious medical professionals had already begun questioning the mother’s role in making her “beautiful little angel” sick. Nurses complained that Mrs. Bush was force-feeding her child with unnecessary seizure drugs that made her vomit.
Independent specialists conducted extensive tests on Jennifer and found no evidence of digestive disorders. When Jennifer was separated from her mother for treatment at a Cincinnati hospital, the starved child feasted mightily on pizza, hot dogs, and chocolate bars. Meanwhile, authorities discovered that while the Bush family claimed poverty because of Jennifer’s health problems, they had splurged on trips to the Bahamas and Disney World, house remodeling, and a new Harley-Davidson motorcycle.
Dr. Eli Newberger, a professor of pediatrics at Harvard Medical School, concluded that nothing in Jennifer’s extensive records indicated “that the child has any underlying illness except the suffering she has had to endure as a result of efforts to portray her as needing urgent care.” Jennifer was removed from her family in 1996 and has been healthy ever since.
And now the final piece of the story that didn’t make it onto the front page of USA Today or into the First Lady’s talking points: Last week, Kathleen Bush – Hillary Clinton’s once-proud and loud sister in arms — was sentenced to five years in prison on two counts of aggravated child abuse and one count of fraud. She also pled guilty to a separate count of welfare fraud for misrepresenting $60,000 in assets on Medicaid forms. “There was probably more abuse in this single case,” lead prosecutor Bob Nichols noted, “than in all of the child-abuse cases I’ve prosecuted in my life combined.”
Mrs. Bush’s behavior is an extreme example of the Nanny State opportunism to which Hillary Clinton has dedicated her life. It’s enough to make you sick.
http://www.jewishworldreview.com/michelle/malkin020400.asp
A family with rental property & a net worth that is more than 75% of Americans can get free health care and abrogate their responsibilites for protecting the financial well-being of the family.
All because they want to be part-timers in the work force.
The same goes for his speculation that all four children have 100% scholarships. (If Krugman has any children, they probably are not entrusted to public schools. If so, he knows that private schools give almost no 100% scholarships to anyone.)
What Michelle Malkin has already written demonstrates that what Paul Krugman has written here is beneath contempt. Not only should his article never been published, he should be fired for even presenting for publication an article so biased and incompetent.
Congressman Billybob
Latest article, "A Toe-Tapping Good Time"
My announcement of running for Congress in 2008 appears here.
Of course the Left will not mention that fact that Frost and his family are a complete fraud. A manufactured media creation to demagogue an indefeasible Democrat position on Schip. Seems now days the Left, especially that portion in the Left in the failed Media, find it objectionable when someone does THEIR job for them and shines the light of truth on political fraud.
Looks like the left is attacking the messenger AGAIN.
20k to exercise choice. if they got vouchers they could use the money for their healthcare. wouldn’t want to raise that issue now would we?
See Paul you aren't so caring after all using little children to further your own skewed interests.
Outstanding grades in kindergarten, and high scores on the elementary school entrance exams. Joking aside, it would be interesting to know exatly what they mean by a scholorship. What was the criteria?
“because Mr. Frost owns a business (it was dissolved in 1999).”
He must be the worst businessman ever since public records show that he purchased the building for his business in the same year. Who’s lying here?
Because the public schools in Baltimore are a nightmare?
NYT=DNC
D’oh.
Here is an excellent example of a self righteous smug journalist smearing conservatives. The premise is that if conservatives ask questions, they're "character assassins." All of the things he mentioned deserved honest questioning or investigation. Nope, it's not honest debate though, it's character assassination. Mean old conservatives.
I have a point of debate I wish to bring up here though. Shoe me how is this attack on conservatives is itself not "character assassination."
And this guy considers himself an economist. I don't know about you, but I think guys like me that need yachts should get one, period. I also think Mr. Krugman should come over and weed my garden, period.
Who is Paul Krugman and why should I care - he seems too stupid to take seriously? He is either intentionally mischaracterizing facts and lying or he is too obtuse to understand simple facts. Either way, his opinion is valueless.
“Joking aside, it would be interesting to know exatly what they mean by a scholorship. What was the criteria?”
It’s also still not clear if they’re full or partial. Obviously this family has some sort of in at this school. I mean, good for them that they can keep their kids out of crappy public schools but I refuse to believe this family raises a family of four on $45,000/year in downtown Baltimore. Money is coming from somewhere else...perhaps proven by the fact that the family is refusing to release their 2006 income tax return.
As I mentioned before, when you add it all up, it doesn’t appear that this family has made health care insurance a priority. And then of course, it came back to bite them when their kids were in the unfortunate accident.
Also..their grand parents are rich. Perhaps they pay the tuition at the private schools.
I still think they are liberal lazy slackers and I shouldn’t be paying for their health insurance premiums.
LOL - Shoe = Show. (Must have been thinking of Ed Sullivan.)
The property remains and now his "business" consists of being a commercial landlord. A good size parcel, about a quarter acre, in a decent commercial/industrial location.
This whole spiel goes back to that LAT article from July...which encouraged Dems to concentrate on emotional campaigning with a total aversion to fact. Sounds like they’re sticking directly to that playbook here.
Someone responded to Michelle Mankin with a great quotable...
“Apparently, public schools aren’t good enough for the Frosts’ kids but public health care is.”
Krugman is a nasty old joke...
When did we lose sight of the fact that it’s immoral to dip your hands into your neighbor’s pocket to get things for yourself or your family, if it’s at all possible to provide for yourself?
The Slimes got that completely wrong. LOL
The Dems screwed up big time here in their propaganda machine. They should’ve trotted out someone who ACTUALLY would be helped by an expansion of S-CHIP....but I guess it would look even worse trotting out a 24 year old with parents that make $83K a year.
“The property remains and now his “business” consists of being a commercial landlord. “
And yet not mentioned by Krugman. Shocking.
““The property remains and now his “business” consists of being a commercial landlord. “”
Guess Mr. Frost sucks at woodworking too since he apparently went out of business in the same year he bought the building.
This article demonstrates why there can be no honest debate, since its so dishonest. This family chose to purchase no insurance for their kids. Period. The 1200, quote sounds right for a family of six, very expensive, so what to do. Not buy at least a catastorophic policy, so you have some coverage? Just wondering if the good mom had priced any other options besides a standard one that covered doctor visits prescriptions, etc, or one that kicked in after they used THEIR OWN resources. Doesn’t seem so.
They chose not to buy any type of coverage. I guess I’d feel more sorry for them if there were a track record of having some sort of insurance, rather than none at all.
A case in point example of the Rats “untouchable” spokesman being protected by the LSM.
A Keynesian economist who has never predicted a single accurate economic trend or event. Normally you wouldn't care except that unfortunately many take him seriously. granted those that do are just as inaccurate, misleading and Prozacally emotional as he is.
I read on Michelle Malkin’s website that family insurance can be had for a family of 6 for around $650/mo, however that does include stiff co-pays. But it’s certainly better than nothing.
I’m not sure the Frosts did their homework on that one. I think they made a conscious decision to forego it, relying on the gov’t programs already in place in case something catastrophic happened and just paying as they go.
Still, I’m not sure how the Frosts’ situation translates into the program covering 24 year olds whose parents make $83K a year. Not to mention that S-CHIP is already in place and covered their kids...so why would an expansion help the Frosts’ situation now?
“Kind of like Jennifer Bush:”
You post is an example of why I frequent this site. I had no idea that happened. Thanks for educating me.
“Seems to be better at procreation than his vocation.”
You bring up a good point. Is it wise for a couple who are having a tough struggle with finances to continue to pound out kids? If society is going to pay for your health care, then society should have a say in how many kids you have.
Sounds like China, huh? We’re well on our way...thanks much Democrats for fostering the nanny state.
Excellent. Why not send a copy of it to Krugman, and write a letter to the editor of the NYT reminding readers about Jennifer....?
It seems to me since the Dems are saying that Republicans are smearing the Frosts by asking questions about their situation, that I guess you can get Dems to pay for anything without questioning it huh?
Do they go into a car dealership and when the salesman says “Oh yeah, that Honda Civic is $40,000” they just pay it? lol
“Why not send a copy of it to Krugman, and write a letter to the editor of the NYT reminding readers about Jennifer”
Because negotiating with Iran and Bin Laden would be more productive and likely to yield results. ;)
Once again Ann Coulter’s comments about the left’s MOA of using “unimpeachable witnesses”, e.g, the Jersey Girls, are spot on.
Now that you mention it, this is a good subject for Ann to address in her next column.
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