Another reason to give to HCAN
In a previous post, I asked you guys to give money to Health Care for America Now based on some hopey-changey assumption that we can reform our health care system to the point where we at least have a lower infant mortality rate than Cuba.
But then I realized that that’s not why I donated to HCAN today. As a Nixon Democrat — that is, a liberal who is motivated more by spite than by hope — I realized that what spurred me to give $40 to HCAN was that Bill Kristol has his fangs out and is encouraging his comrades kill health reform for another 20 years. Greg Sargent notes that the White House is smartly starting to use this against him:
Asked today why Obama went on the offensive against DeMint’s claim that health care failure could “break” Obama, Gibbs said:
“I think what we want people to understand are a few things. One, we’ve been discussing this for decades. And the familiar mantra of delay has been the message for many of those years to put off the needed and necessary reforms that have to take place in our health care system. You could just as easily have quoted a Republican strategist today who said to go for the kill and asked opponents to resist the temptation to be responsible.”
A lot of people have been wondering when the White House would more aggressively link today’s obstruction to health care reform to the previous, notoriously uncompromising effort to kill it at all costs. This could be the start of such an effort.
Allow me to help them in this effort!
Ladies and gentlemen, this is Bill Kristol:
As if his smug, slimy demeanor weren’t enough reason to dislike him, we must remember the big reason why Kristol opposes health care reform in the first place. In his own words:
[T]he long-term political effects of a successful Clinton health care bill will be even worse–much worse. It will relegitimize middle-class dependence for “security” on government spending and regulation. It will revive the reputation of the party that spends and regulates, the Democrats, as the generous protector of middle-class interests. And it will at the same time strike a punishing blow against Republican claims to defend the middle class by restraining government.
Or put another way, we must oppose health care reform because the public might like it once it’s done.
“But why?” I can hear you asking. “Why would anyone be wicked enough to oppose a policy that would be broadly beneficial to the American middle class?”
The answer is opportunity cost. Bill Kristol is a man whose sole purpose in life is to promote wars, as he has advocated using military force to attack Iran, North Korea, Sudan and even Somali pirates. And if we pass universal coverage in this country, it’ll mean more money for health care means less money for his precious, precious wars.
So! Bill Kristol. 100% evil. And he’s one of the chief forces behind the anti-reform efforts. Are y’all ready to give to HCAN now?
Kristol may be evil, but he’s useful. He’s so consistently, invariably wrong about everything that if we just do exactly the opposite of anything he says, we’ll be fine.
You’re right. On second though, don’t give to HCAN!! Send money to Michael Steele and get him on the news 24 hours a day!!!!
Kristol may be evil, but he’s useful. He’s so consistently, invariably wrong about everything that if we just do exactly the opposite of anything he says, we’ll be fine.
Sort of a Cassandra in reverse.
I think there’s something wrong with the pie script – I can see his face.
His expression in that picture always says to me, “Please don’t hate me, you know this is all a game, right?”
This is Bill Kristol. Also. From Rocky Mtn. News:
“I remember back in the late 1990s, when Ira Katznelson, an eminent political scientist at Columbia, came to deliver a guest lecture. Prof. Katznelson described a lunch he had with Irving Kristol during the first Bush administration.
“The talk turned to William Kristol, then Dan Quayle’s chief of staff, and how he got his start in politics. Irving recalled how he talked to his friend Harvey Mansfield at Harvard, who secured William a place there as both an undergrad and graduate student; how he talked to Pat Moynihan, then Nixon’s domestic policy adviser, and got William an internship at the White House; how he talked to friends at the RNC [Republican National Committee] and secured a job for William after he got his Harvard Ph.D.; and how he arranged with still more friends for William to teach at Penn and the Kennedy School of Government.
“With that, Prof. Katznelson recalled, he then asked Irving what he thought of affirmative action. ‘I oppose it,’ Irving replied. ‘It subverts meritocracy.’ ”
“Nate, you’re in the wrong house again!”
His expression in that picture always says to me, “Please don’t hate me, you know this is all a game, right?”
Really? Because it says to me “Please punch me in the face repeatedly.”
He doesn’t want health care reform to pass, because it would be politically bad for the Republicans. See, he wants the Republicans to be shitty leaders who do the opposite of what their constitutents want so they can stay in office and continue to be shitty leaders and do the opposite of what their constituents want.
I wish the media could get the message out to members of the working class who are Republicans: YOUR PARTY HATES YOU!
OT: Beaucoup Deep Kimchee.
http://tpmtv.talkingpointsmemo.com/?id=2995960&ref=fpblg
Uh, actually, Kristol led the charge against healthcare reform back in the ’90s because he KNEW that successful passage would power the Democrats to electoral victory for at least a generation. His opposition was based on preventing Democrats from gaining such an advantage, not on any principaled stand for or against the proposition per se. Or on any conception that money spent on healthcare is money that can’t be spent on war.
A Reverse Cassandra. I like that, it should be the name of a sex position.
Maybe Bill knows he’s consistently full of shit and argues from morally perverse and indefensible positions. He could just be cursed by the gods and helpless to stop it.
Or, OTOH, he could just be another neocon douchebag.
What I love is the naked partisanship on display, he’s not even trying to be principled here.
I’ll be sending the check in- most bartenders have little or no employer-provided coverage, and I have to think about their needs.
(A) All men are mortal
(B) Bill Kristol is not a man
Thus
(C ) Not all men are Bill Kristol
Bill Kristol’s expression says “I have a chronic, serious flatulence problem”
His expression in that picture always says to me, “Please don’t hate me, you know this is all a game, right?”
“Just because you are a pawn or a kickball in the game, you have no reason to hate me.”
As a fellow liberal motivated entirely by spite, I think we need a new name for our movement. I won’t be calling myself a “Nixon” anything.
Thoughts?
Maybe Bill knows he’s consistently full of shit and argues from morally perverse and indefensible positions. He could just be cursed by the gods and helpless to stop it.
Or, OTOH, he could just be another neocon douchebag.
the second one.
dammit, I may be broke, but I’m gonna scrape up a couple of sawbucks to send in. Small price to make Bill Kristol and Chris Matthews cry.
I wonder if we were to squirt Dawn dishwashing soap at Kristol, it would cause the grease molecules holding his body together to break apart, in turn causing him to disintegrate before our very eyes. Is anyone willing to try? For science?
Damn it! I’m morally opposed to health care, but my spite for Kristol is making me reconsider!
Hmm – unless we can somehow make Kristol personally fight all his wars single-handedly and deny him and only him health care. Put that amendment in, and we’ve got a winner, folks.
Maybe Bill knows he’s consistently full of shit and argues from morally perverse and indefensible positions. He could just be cursed by the gods and helpless to stop it.
Or, OTOH, he could just be another neocon douchebag.
Why choose? Can’t we have it all? C’mon, think outside the douchebox.
I wish the media could get the message out to members of the working class who are Republicans: YOUR PARTY HATES YOU!
The media is paid to get a message out.
Here’s Perry, carrying right-wing bacon at the WaPoo.
more money for health care means less money for his precious, precious wars.
Considering the US ranks #1 in per capita healthcare costs, this isn’t quite true.
Public system more expensive: another obstructionist myth.
I guess what I’m saying is, Kristol could have his wars, the rest of you could have effective healthcare and there’d still be money left over for re-education camps from Boise to Birmingham.
OT: Beaucoup Deep Kimchee.
Ay-HEM.
(BTW — WTF? Firefox doesn’t recognize the word “kimchee”? Also.)
Caption for the photo and my new favourite insult; He has always given the impression of a man who has escaped the tyranny of abstract thought.
Children will see that picture of Kristol in history books for centuries to come with the caption :
“When the Revolution finally came, Bill Kristol was first against the wall.”
“When the Revolution finally came, Bill Kristol was first against the wall.”
Several times.
“When the Revolution finally came, Bill Kristol was first against the wall.”
We have a dream.
“When the Revolution finally came, Bill Kristol was first against the wall.”
Because it involved violence, he was all for it.
“Nate, you’re in the wrong house again!”
OUCH.
If a revolution came, wouldn’t you like to have him on public display instead? You could have parades around his glass enclosure and force him to look at your socialistical happiness.
Anyways, the mathematians would like to study him and his continual defiance of the law of averages.
Yes, and any idea could be run by him to make sure he disapproved before it went forward.
I don’t want him to be first against the wall. I want him to watch the people he pimped go against the wall first, and I want him to have plenty of time to anticipate and imagine himself against the wall, knowing that his turn is coming, but not exactly when.
Obama’s policy agenda and that of the Communist Party of the USA are in perfect alignment
I’ve heard that this S. McGravitas has kidnapped Righteous Bubba and sold his body parts to buy drugs.
Hugs. HUGS.
tigrismus, I bow before your genius.
Woohoo, I pinch your bottom!
First against the wall?
Wait…. since the Right used 1984 as a blueprint for the past several years, maybe there’s something in there that could be appropriate. You know, poetic irony, kind of.
I’m not sure, but I think there’s something…..
The only thing about health care that bothers me is who can you trust to do health care without fraud and corruption. Insurance companies have spent years perfecting fraud in everything they touch. Medicare is a good example. It is not government (the people doing the work) that screws up what they touch, it is our Congresspeople and the executive branch. Used car dealers are trusted more than them. I want to know who can be trusted to manage a health care system for the people.
Darrell – Neither government, nor Congresspeople, nor the executive branch are responsible for Medicare fraud. The fraud is perpetrated by private individuals and corporations who bill for care that was never delivered.
The biggest example of Medicare fraud would be Columbia Healthcare, whose CEO was forced out as a result, and who (the fraudster ex-CEO) now is running ads against health care reform.
The biggest example of Medicare fraud would be Columbia Healthcare, whose CEO was forced out as a result, and who (the fraudster ex-CEO) now is running ads against health care reform.
So why in the hell isn’t someone running a grainy, black and white, slo-mo video of the guy (and others like him) with menacing music and a voiceover of “these are the people who want to keep Americans from having a top-notch health care system because it will take profit out of their pockets….” (or something to that effect)?
There are 2 major problems with a government-funded health insurance program:
1. It would be a corrupt, inefficient, bloated bureacracy, incapable of providing quality service at a reasonable cost…AND
2. Private insurers would be unable to compete, and would be driven out of business.
These are NOT mutually exclusive! They’re both true–why?–because shut up, that’s why!
So why in the hell isn’t someone running a grainy, black and white, slo-mo video of the guy (and others like him) with menacing music and a voiceover of “these are the people who want to keep Americans from having a top-notch health care system because it will take profit out of their pockets….” (or something to that effect)?
Because the public is already there, by a wide margin.
Now, combine that ad idea, only show a recalcitrant Dem “gang of six” senator shaking that guy’s hand while pocketing a stack of bills, and we would have an ad that addresses the real issue here.
I want the words “corrupt” and “bloated” attached to my health care. Rotten, putrefying, necrotic, and for-profit, too.
Also.
You bloated idiot!
Look what you did to my sheeert!
His expression in that picture always says to me, “Please don’t hate me, you know this is all a game, right?”
It’s a shit-eating grin if I ever saw one.
With the business end of a lawnmower.
Actually, I can’t look at him long enough to make out what it says.
But yeah, him and Feith are about the only two people where simply looking at a picture of them makes me wish unspeakable violence upon them.
Funny that.
OT, but apropos: The Capricorn Beast-O-Scope (The Beast #137) reads in part: The next time you try to say that Nazis are left-wing, your brain will deliberately throw a blood vessel. There are some mental atrocities a brain just can’t survive.
They all have that same smirk: Bush, Kristol, Rove, Wolfowitz, even Cheny, when he is between snarling sneers, has that same look that says, “So? whatever you say doesn’t matter, because you don’t have the money, the influence or the power to stop me, ’cause you ain’t in the club, and you never will be!
To quote the great moral philosopher William Marcy Tweed, “As long as I count the votes, what are you going to do about it?”
Shorter Kristol’s face: Fuck. You. Also, neener neener neener, it don’t matter I got a tiny peenor.
Henry Louis Gates Jr. was arrested in his own home for being uppity with police when they asked him what he was doing, lingering around his house looking all suspiciously black.
Shorter Kristol’s Face
No, the face is the”shorter”. That smug, oh-so-sophisticated, slightly impatient, condescending, rather put-upon at having to explain himself to lesser mortals expression is the shorthand for the subtext of every word that he deigns to give to the world. It says, “I’m better than you; I’m a member of an elite class. It doesn’t matter that every prediction I’ve ever made has turned out to be absolutely, diametrically wrong, because my voice is still heeded.” What’s galling is that he’s right. He is still being interviewed as if he were some kind of expert, on every news channel on cable, day after day after day, and his columns are still printed, and are read by the people who are still making the decisions. His expression also conveys the smug satisfaction he takes from galling everyone who sees through his patrician, tory certitude.
No, I think the real use for Kristol would be as the nexus of an improbability drive, a la Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. The probability that Kristol would ever get something right is so vanishingly small that the wave of improbability emanating from that smug piehole 24/7 could be easily harnessed to allow interstellar travel.
Think of how patently unfair it is these guys have to compete with non-profits like the Red Cross and Doctors Without Borders already! Every disaster relief effort they do is literally an economic holocaust for these poor guys. And the fact that emergency rooms will see the poor whether or not they can afford it totally destroys any sort of lower end for the insurance market. It’s an atrocimacy, I tells ya, an atrocimacy.
It’s an atrocimacy, I tells ya, an atrocimacy.
Lucky duckies.
I guess what I’m saying is, Kristol could have his wars, the rest of you could have effective healthcare and there’d still be money left over for re-education camps from Boise to Birmingham.
But what about the gay, Islamic abortions, would there be money for that?
“If a revolution came, wouldn’t you like to have him on public display instead?”
Absolutely.
Well, part of him.
His head.
On a pike.
Well, as they say, “There’s always room for pie.”
Hey Sadly, No! If you meet with the President again, you think you could get me an autograph? It would make my daughter really happy.
I’m in for $50 (and that’s from a tightly stretched budget). Just to wipe the smirk off Kristalnachts face. In fact, did you know that I was never really sure what a smirk was, until I saw Bill Kristol. I remember going “ah, that’s a smirk.”
Meanwhile, my whole thought through this thread was “weren’t the Nixon Democrast properly called a Dixiecrat?”
Just saying you may want to rethink the labeling, boss.
That smarmy git. It’s scum like Kristol that made it necessary to invent the idea of Hell. The thought of pigs like that getting away with no afterlife of eternal punishment was too galling to endure.
Just saying you may want to rethink the labeling, boss.”
Nixocrat?
http://www.overpopulation.com/articles/2002/cuba-vs-the-united-states-on-infant-mortality/
Brad Reed, as most leftwingers, continues to recklessly quote statistics without giving any thought to causality.
Jayzuz you guise are terrible Obots! Look, if yer gonna flack for the democorporate party, at least take Corrente off yer blogroll. Using Kristolnacht as the repububthugrapelican boogieman-dew-joor to scare your do-nothing pwoggie readers is fine, but you can’t shill for your political masters and have articles that tell the truth (like How the Dems and “progressives” are selling you the “bait and switch” of public option available to your gullible demotard fanbase. JeezLouise! Get with it! Dear Leader is counting on you to get re-elected!
AlanSmithee, you are indeed very late to the party.
AlanSmithee is a fan of Lambert 2.0? Or maybe is Lambert 2.0? Ha ha ha! I agree though that Emowire should be taken off the blogroll.
I hate to sound all nativist here, but fuck it: Bill Kristol would spend untold millions “liberating” Iraq, but not one thin dime on health care for Americans?
Fuck him. No, really, fuck him.
I will not give money to HCAN as they are pushing a do-nothing so-called “reform” plan the only thing about which we can be certain is that it will keep the insurance companies in business and fat and happy for years to come. Rather, I make a monthly recurring donation to Healthcare NOW.
So sad to see Obama, Congressional Democrats and their allies squandering a historic opportunity by starting negotiations from a position of compromise.