The Shield of Achilles: Truth is the first casualty

Thursday, October 18, 2007

Truth is the first casualty

...of US Politics. (except on this site)

Unless you dig for yourself, you rarely hear the truth reported in US political battles these days. As I pointed out a few days ago, Democrats in the US congress used a 12 year old boy, named Graeme Frost, to read a statement promoting S-CHIP, a program expanding health care coverage to poor children.

To read the papers, you would think the Republicans and their allies in the media went on an all-out assault against the boy himself. Here are a few examples:

Quote from Newsweek magazine's "conventional wisdom" about Michelle Malkin:

(Arrow Down) Heartless right-wing blogger attacks 12-year-old brain-injury victim over insurance. Sick.

From the Las Vegas Sun:

Trashing a 12-year-old
Conservatives vilify a boy and his family in a mean campaign to kill children's health plan

And from the Think Progress site:

Right Wing Launches Baseless Smear Campaign Against 12 Year Old Recipient Of SCHIP...

Conservatives have more recently turned their targets on young Graeme Frost himself. A poster at the Free Republic propagated information alleging that Frost was actually a rich kid being pampered by the government.

Actually, that article at the Free Republic only said the boy was "not so poor", which, last time I checked, was not considered an "insult" or an "attack" - in fact, most would think it was more like a compliment.

In any case, none of these accusations are true. Neither Rush Limbaugh, Michelle Malkin, or any other right-wing pundit attacked the boy. The boy's parents were heavily criticized, because many people believed they misrepresented their financial situation, claiming to be poorer than they actually were. Most of this was groundless, but some of it was not. And that's beside the point. The point is, the boy was not attacked, and nobody can produce a single link, quote, audio clip, or anything else that proves otherwise, not even the sites I linked to above. There is literally nothing there to support such a claim. Go ahead, check them out for yourself.

But to some people, that doesn't matter. President Bush vetoed the bill, and it's up for an override vote - so the bill's supporters are doing whatever it takes to destroy their opposition - even if it means blatantly lying about them. That's how desperate they are to get this thing passed.

But this is the real absurdity here: if the bill does have merit, shouldn't those merits stand up for themselves? Why are so many supporters of S-CHIP willing to lie to get this thing passed? Why do they care about this bill so much?

Many Congressmen are genuinely concerned about the bill, but the current fight is about more than that. With the Presidential election on the horizon next year, Democrats are salivating at the chance to accuse their opponents of "attacking young boys" and "voting against health care for children".

What I found was seriously lacking from both sides in all this noise was: 1) An actual debate about the costs and benefits of the S-CHIP program, outside the one anecdote of this family, and 2) any real discussion of alternatives to the bill.

Incidentally, I am never shy about challenging my beliefs. I had quite a debate about this in a comment thread on another website, and even though I challenged dozens of hostile commenters to try and prove me wrong, nobody could. The closest they could get was to rationalize that since they are a family, any attacks on the parents mean an attack on the children. OK then, by that logic, any attacks on President Bush mean an attack on his twin daughters? How dare the anyone take potshots at young Jenna or Barbara Bush!