Not as if anyone really needed it, but I've just stumbled upon more proof that the Democrats really, really, really, really SUCK at messaging.
I'm never surprised at the depths to which the GOP will go to obfuscate, mislead, misguide, misinform, dramatize, politicize, sensationalize, and just plain ole' lie... for the truth is rarely, if ever, on their side.
But pursing the news this morning I came across an article which really hit home for me. It very clearly delineated the difference between the parties and outlined their general approach to legislation. The Dems think people are smart enough to see through the smoke and past the scary disjointed reflections in the GOP's carnival mirrors. They seem to take governing somewhat seriously, to the point that they try to dot every 'I' and cross every 'T'.
But would it be so hard for the Poindexter Dems to organize a coherent response message to the GOP nonsense regarding Health Care Reform and hammer it home, just this once? It's kind of important.
Follow me into the fold...
AP - WASHINGTON — Republicans are using everything short of forklifts to show Americans that Democratic health care legislation is an unwieldy mountain of paper. They pile it high on desks, hoist it on a shoulder trussed in sturdy rope and tell people it's longer than "War and Peace," which it isn't.
Although they complain they don't have time to read all of it, they found the time to tape it together, page by page, so they could roll it up the steps of the Capitol like super-sized toilet paper and show how very long it is.
Size matters in the health care debate because Republicans have turned the length of the legislation into a symbol: Big, unwieldy bill means big, overreaching government.
...
Five Republican senators displayed the massive legislation on their desks during the weekend vote to bring the Senate health bill to full debate, as GOP lawmakers have been doing since the House bill came out earlier.
As if he risked a hernia carrying it any other way, Republican Rep. Steve King of Iowa was seen carrying the House Democratic bill on his shoulder, all roped together. GOP Rep. John Culberson of Texas brought a copy to a Capitol Hill rally and threw its loose pages to the crowd, like meat to lions.
The actual Senate bill, which Majority Leader Harry Reid introduced last week, came in at 2,074 double-spaced pages, 84 more pages than the House version, which was already being ridiculed for its size.
"That's larger than the novel 'War and Peace,'" Republican Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah said of the Senate bill.
...
Actually, Leo Tolstoy's tome is longer than either bill. Full translated versions are nearly twice as long.
The bill passed by the House is 319,145 words. The Senate bill is 318,512 words, shorter than the House version despite consuming more paper. Various versions of Tolstoy's novel are 560,000 to 670,000 words. Bush's education act tallied more than 280,000 words.
By now, the full draft of Reid's bill that had circulated in the corridors and landed so prominently on Republican desks has been published in the Congressional Record in the official and conventional manner.
The type is small and tight. No hernias will be caused by moving this rendering of the bill around. Unfurling it on the Capitol steps would not be much of a spectacle.
It's 209 pages.
Emphasis mine.