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Lower than Low: McConnell Staff’s Attack on 12-Year-Old Health Care Recipient |
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Republicans in Washington have had their hands dirtied by plenty of scandals in recent months, but this latest action has to rank among the lowest. In an effort to beat back full funding for children’s health care, the staff of Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) supported a smear campaign against a 12-year-old survivor of a car crash.
The experiences of the Frost family of Baltimore highlight the need for the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP). A hard-working, two-job family with four children, the Frosts were struck by tragedy: a car accident nearly killed two of their children. Without adequate heath coverage, the Frosts were headed for bankruptcy or worse. Because of SCHIP, the Frosts could afford the five months of hospitalization that allowed their children to survive.
Graeme Frost, the family’s 12-year-old son, recently delivered a radio address in support of SCHIP. He requested that Congress override Bush’s veto of the program, so that millions of others like him wouldn’t be denied the health care they need.
Reactionary bloggers spent several days harassing the family and looking for “proof” the Frosts were too wealthy to “deserve” SCHIP. Over several days, these bloggers—including Fox News correspondent Michelle Malkin—made unfounded, speculative claims about Graeme Frost and his family, staked out their house and questioned their neighbors and posted photos of the Frost family’s home online. The Baltimore Sun chronicled the harassment that made an ordinary family the target of conservative media outlets like National Review, Rush Limbaugh and more.
While the national media picked up and passed on the lies and false assertions from these blogs, they have not been so quick to let the public know the extent of McConnell’s involvement.
Progressive bloggers at the national level and Kentucky bloggers in the Bluegrass State have not let the smear campaign slip by. National bloggers such as Jonathan Cohn, Ezra Klein and Hilary Bok have been on the case from the beginning. As Klein notes:
The Frost family’s situation highlights our health care system’s moral injustices, economic failing, and simple absurdities…like millions of other Americans, they’ve found that doing everything right doesn’t mean you can afford health insurance.
Is it really the stance of conservatives, compassionate or otherwise, that their children should lack medical coverage? Is this what the modern Republican Party has come to? Because make no mistake: It’s families like the Frosts who’ll be helped by S-CHIP’s expansion.
Think Progress uncovered the involvement of McConnell’s staff in furthering the smear campaign. Think Progress obtained an e-mail sent to reporters by McConnell’s communications director, Don Stewart, in which he touted the claims the extremist bloggers made about the Frost family. (Stewart later sent an e-mail to the same reporters, acknowledging the accusations about the Frosts didn’t stand up to scrutiny.)
Stewart sent the e-mail Monday, Oct. 8. As word spread that McConnell may have had a hand in pushing the attacks on Frost and his family, McConnell went into denial mode. That Thursday, McConnell told Louisville’s WHAS-TV that his staff had “no involvement” in the anti-Frost campaign. Yet McConnell knew this wasn’t true when he said it.
Ditch Mitch, a Kentucky blog, posted a video of McConnell lying to reporters about his staff’s involvement in the smear campaign. Other Kentucky blogs, like Bluegrassroots, Bluegrass Report and Page One Kentucky, are keeping up the pressure on McConnell.
Two of McConnell’s home-state papers have criticized him for his role in the smear campaign and his attempt to cover it up. The Lexington Herald-Leader and the Louisville Courier-Journal condemned McConnell and his staff in strongly worded editorials.
The Frosts exemplify our nation’s need for health care reform. They worked hard, played by the rules and tried to take care of their kids. They stepped forward in support of the program that saved the lives of their children. In return, they found themselves attacked by a right-wing campaign that went all the way from their own street to the leader of the Senate Republicans. Bonnie Frost told the Baltimore Sun:
I’m just trying to understand this moment of nastiness. The nastiness caught me by surprise.
McConnell and the Republican media machine that pushed these attacks should be ashamed of themselves. Unfortunately, as the failure to override Bush’s SCHIP veto shows, McConnell and his allies seem incapable of shame.
12 Comments
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The wingnuts have no shame and continue to stoop to lower levels of attack rather than actually enter into a policy debate.
Well put, Seth!!
If the Rich could pay the poor to die for them the poor could make a decent living !!!( Fiddler on the Roof) Like the Robber barons of the 19th century ” The working Class I can hire half the working class to kill the other half. Not providing health care coverage for poor children is tantamount to genocide of the poor. Perhaps that is why they do not want to call what Turkey did to the Armenians genocide.
The Christian right wing seems to forget: ..I was sick and you did not care for me I was naked and you did not clothe me I was hungry and you gave me no food… such as you have done to the least of these you have done to me!! I pray for these Republicans to change their hearts. If not let us cast them out of office! The sooner the better!!
Take note of those House members who voted no tosday against the children. If they are up for re-election next yr., then it is important to make this a major issue, barring any bathroom incidents, and get these these mindless, dictator supporting, weasels out of office.
Remember when the dictator wants his “war” funding. Just say no!
This should be the last straw for Republican Congressional Representatives who voted with Bush to sustain his veto of SCHIP. All Americans, regardless of party affiliation have a need for this protection of their children. Come Novenber 2008, I suspect they will get an unwelcome wake up call from those parents and yes, grandparents too.
Talk about attacking the messenger! Our national health care crisis won’t go away no matter how hard the opposition tries to demonize those children and their families.
Really, it shouldn’t even matter how much a person earns. Working families need affordable health care—care that covers every conceivable tragedy. Illness or accident can put a family in financial jeopardy very, very quickly. If your paycheck stopped tomorrow because you had to take time away from your job to get your family back on its feet, how soon would you be unable to pay your house note or rent? How soon would you run out of groceries? When would your insurance coverage cancel?
Between the misleading WalMart commercials (where they insinuate their employees can get coverage for $30 per month), and this incredibly insensitive attack on this brave family, I hope union folks are going to be going out to the polls and stopping this madness by voting these creeps out of office!
You people need to get all your facts straight before posting some of these stories. I’ve been a Union member for 34 years and strongly believe in the Union concept.I believe most working people in this great country are fairly conservative but Unions as a whole had better be carefull because they are leaning way to far to the left. All of the Democratic candidates are way to LIBERAL for most working people.
The issue here is health care for millions of children in this country. Most union workers’ families have health care. SCHIP is for the children who have no health care. If supporting health care for our children and our people makes me LIBERAL, then I accept that. I don’t know which union families you have been talking to, but the ones I speak to daily are all very upset that the SCHIP legislation was vetoed.
Senator Mitch McConnell is an asshole who should not be in the Senate. Why do we have these assholes in Washington who oppose healthcare for disadvantaged kids? It’s beyond me.
Bravo pemmert2 and stahoo please remember to focus on your wallet and lunch box. We lost control of our union message when we had to add that second job, and everyone over 15 had to work at least part time to keep our fathers and grandfathers had on one job. Also many things we are TOLD are liberal are not. A real conservative when faced with choices does fear the change, BUT if you can prove the idea will make things better, pay a dividend, or save sweat without eroding the job, they’ll go for it. a REACTIONARY on the other hand refuses any change, in anything for any reason. As a true trade unionist you should know your personal limits, but remember it’s about the most good for most members/people, sometimes things like personal religous ideas will butt heads with that. That’s when you say ‘I can’t go there’, but I won’t stop others as long as I can be me. As for our candidates again look at the wallet-if you and the boss pay less for medical that’s more in your pocket, don’t matter who finds the way to save the scratch as long as it don’t come out of workers hide. In areas like equal rights never forget that all it takes a few small changes of wording and you are the target of the day, change the race, change the relgion, change the gender, screw one of our own we screw ourselves.
Does this cluster debacle tell anyone how the greedy, wealthy, right really thinks of Americans????????????? It is well documented the that former(former) CEO of Good Year said ” there would be no productivity in this country unless the wages of our factory were at or below the wages of factory workers in North Korea. Talk about globilization! This health issue for children is dispicable and let me take this a step further my next door neighbor worked for Sprint/Embarq for 35 years he was told there would be a cap on his retirement benefits, he would recieve $40,000.00 of life insurance and the rest of his benefits would remain the same. However after he retired his life insurance benefits were cut to $10,000.00 and just four weeks ago after his approximate 10 or 15 years of retirement he would have, and you guessed it NO Health Care Insurance Have a NICE RETIREMENT!!!
This has got to be one of the worst cases of political decadence and media smear tactics ever. To attempt to destroy a family who has done absolutely nothing wrong but try to survive after a devastating accident nearly killed their two beautiful children is absolutely beyond comprehension for even the sleaziest of individuals out there. The fact that this family is speaking out about a program that has helped them immeasurably is something all our political leaders should be in favor of, and understandably so. It is my guess that the ones trashing this family are jealous of the remarkable resiliency of this family, the wonderfully mannered and articulate son, and the ability of the family to look these monsters strait in the eye and say in as nice a way as possible that they’re trying to understand the nastiness, puts this family in a class above and beyond McConnell, Malkin, Limbaugh, O’Reilly, and all the other right-wing reprehensible bloggers who have chosen the despicable lowest road by attacking children because they have something important to say, just because it is something they don’t believe in. I say, get over yourselves and your self-righteousness. You have lost credibility with the rest of the world, and now everyone knows how ridiculously STUPID you all are.
A final note: If Bush was in favor of SCHIP and increasing the funding for it, these people would not have attacked this family. This is yet another proof that these morons can not think for themselves and will follow the president blindly, even when his decision is a devastatingly immoral one.
The SCHIP bill is a moral priority and healthcare for disadvantaged kids is extremely important. Why is President Bush picking on poor, defenseless kids? His priorities are screwed up and is totally out of touch with the American people.