It's a holiday in America so the posting will be light today. But I wanted to bring this to your attention.
I was watching C-SPAN yesterday morning and a guy called in ranting about how the stimulus bill was going to limit healthcare choices in America, especially for old people. Having been on C-SPAN plenty of times and heard this kind of thing before, I could tell that this guy sounded like he was repeating right-wing radio talking points. I checked it out.
The story that emerges is just an absolutely classic case study in conservative lying. Not using this set of facts over that set of facts, which people do all the time. Just. Lying. Their asses off.
The matter is fully and beautifully explained by Ezra Klein here, and you should read his account because he knows the ins and outs of healthcare policy a jillion times better than I do.
And here, Steve Benen does a fine job of showing how these blatant lies get pumped into the civic bloodstream.
For those of you not in the US, let me say this plainly. Liberals and conservatives both use their own sets of numbers. For example, if a program was funded at $300 million last year and has already been scheduled to go to $320 million next year, and Congress then reduces that expected increase to $308 million, liberals call that a cut, because $12 million was indeed cut out of the already agreed-upon increase, while conservative say hey, it's still going up. Both sides have a point (in this case, to be honest, liberals are technically correct but conservatives may well have more of a point).
But conservative propagandists routinely lie in a way liberal ones don't. They just lie. Rush Limbaugh, who is involved in this story, doesn't give a flying f*** whether it's true or not. He's inclined to believe it, because it suits his world view, and it's good for bashing Democrats. That's all he needs to know.
Betsy McCaughey, also involved in this story, just lied about the Clinton healthcare plan. Just. Lied. Read Ezra.
I'm not saying no liberal ever lies. Sometimes people say irresponsible things of all kinds. But I am saying that outright lying is a strategy of conservative propagandists in a way it just isn't on the other side. It's part of the Leninist mindset through which they approach politics.
