Thursday, October 11, 2007

Senate GOP Leader's Office involved in Kid Smear Campaign


I had written that the GOP politicians were too smart to want this to be a mass media issue. It turns out that they just didn't want their hands too dirty. They encouraged the media to look into how it was all the Democrat's fault they picked a family and injured kids who could be smeared by the right.

That so-called-liberal CNN took their bait and blamed the Democrats as the GOP suggested.

A disgusted Time magazine reports on the Swift Boating of an American family.
If you listen closely to the two-minute radio address that 12-year-old Graeme Frost delivered last week for the Democrats, you can hear the lingering effects of the 2004 car crash that put him into a coma for a week and left one of his vocal cords paralyzed. "Most kids my age probably haven't heard of CHIP, the Children's Health Insurance Program," he says in a voice that sounds weak and stressed. "But I know all about it, because if it weren't for CHIP, I might not be here today."

Graeme, whose sister suffered worse brain injuries when their family SUV hit a patch of black ice, was making an appeal for President Bush to reconsider his veto of legislation that would have expanded the program designed to provide health coverage to children of the working poor — those who are too rich to qualify for Medicaid, but unable to afford private insurance.

Since then, Frost and his family have been introduced first-hand to something else that most kids his age haven't: the reality of how brutal partisan politics can be in the Internet age.
Shame on the conservative bloggers. Shame on the GOP. And shame on CNN.

Kevin: are they just trying to prevent other family's from giving support to Democrats?

Malkin is back swinging the hatchet and leading the rabid fray but refusing to debate.

My DD: Hillary to Republicans - Lay off Graeme Frost.
There was a young boy who was 12 years old named Graeme Frost. He was in a bad car accident and he didn't have health insurance but thankfully he had a program that I helped start in 1997 with Ted Kennedy and others called SCHIP. So Graeme was able to get health care, good health care, that made a tremendous difference in the outcome of his injuries. So when the President vetoed the extension of SCHIP, Graeme and his family stepped forward to illustrate why it was so important....

And boy the whole Republican and right wing attack machine went into overdrive. And they said 'well, they have a house' - yeah, I guess they could sell their house to give their child insurance.

I don't mind if they pick on me. They've done it for years. I think I've proven I can take care of myself. But George Bush and the Republicans should lay off Graeme Frost and all the other millions of American children getting their insurance from SCHIP."
I suspect the strategy is for the Republican Noise Machine media to generate lots of lies and confusion and smears while the GOP politicians stay back. I think this is a bad strategy, it will engage the base who will agree with it but turn off Moms and most of America by the attacks on the poor kids. Of course, right-wing radio and blogs aren't read by the great sensible mass of America and particularly by the real compassionate Americans.

GOP smear machine attacking injured kids - making Hillary more popular.

American Progress has an Excellent summary Right Wing attacks 12-year-old. The latest GOP talking point is that making $45,000 with 4 kids in New Jersey is rich.

Democrats in Congress actually lashing back. I like how Politico characterizes developing a spine as lashing back.

Local Baltimore story on the Frost family. Editorial: Maryland needs the Democratic SCHIP.
The president also wants to limit new spending on SCHIP to $5 billion over five years - compared with Congress' $35 billion. That would leave Maryland with only half the $162 million a year it needs to continue the program as it is.
Daily Kos - This Can Not Stand.
Let's just keep in mind what is at stake here - Health Care for 4 Million Children and what Mitch McConnel is really trying to do is undermine Republican Chuck Grassley's efforts to implement a Veto Override.

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