The right-wing Jihad against 12-year-old Graeme Frost continues, with Rush taking his cues from already discredited Freeper attacks.
Rush Limbaugh has joined in the smear campaign. On his radio show yesterday, Rush introduced his hit job on Graeme by saying, “I had some rudimentary information on this two weeks ago, and it wasn’t enough for me to trust going with. But since then, it has been verified, and most of it’s been verified by a ‘Freeper’ at Free Republic.” Apparently, a posting by a “freeper” is all Rush needs for confirmation.
Rush proceeded to recycle the myths that Graeme and his sister must be fat-cat recipients of government welfare because they attend “one of Baltimore’s expensive private schools” and own a house in a decent neighborhood. As we noted yesterday, Graeme has a scholarship to the private school. His sister’s tuition is covered by the state due to her brain injuries, and the house was purchased for $55,000 in 1991 when the neighborhood was not as safe as it is today.
FDL's Christy:
Compassionate conservatism and family values, my ass. Let me get this straight: this family has tried to better themselves at every turn, they love their children, they are getting these kids the best education possible through some amazing scholarships and intervention service help to try and help them improve and perhaps have some semblance of a childhood to progress as much as possible past their injuries, they are facing catastrophic medical bills, they want to save their kids — whatever it takes…and the right wing has a problem with that. Telling, isn’t it?
Digby:
This is so loathesome I am literally sick to my stomach. These kids were hurt in a car accident. Their parents could not afford health insurance — and sure as hell couldn’t get it now with a severely handicapped daughter. And these shrieking wingnut jackasses are harassing their family for publicly supporting the program that allowed the kids to get health care. A program, by the way, which a large number of these Republicans support as well.
They went after Michael J. Fox. They went after a wounded Iraq war veteran. Now they are going after handicapped kids. There is obviously no limit to how low these people will go.
But hey, it's about "saving money", right? Good thing your government is spending some of that precious money on an useless abstinence-only ad campaign. As Lawyers, Guns, and Money's Scott Lemioux says:
It's a minor example among the countless ones of the Bush administration's fiscal incontinence, but the money the Bush administration is using to fund useless abstinence-only programs and useless abstinence-only advertising campaigns makes it pretty clear that the veto of SCHIP was not about the money, but about the horrifying prospect that providing insurance to more middle class children might create a slippery slope to the kind of health care system used in every other liberal democracy where more people are covered for less money for health outcomes that aren't any worse. And we can't have that!
Absolutely not. And they'll trample over a 12-year-old boy, his severely handicapped sister, and his financially struggling parents in desperation to keep a popular program helping children from seeing the light of day.
What's incredible about this whole mess, other than the fact that it's tanking the GOP brand even further (thanks for that, by the way), is that we're going to get this thing passed. And when we do -- under a Democratic administration -- it'll be far better (read: "worse for conservatives") than this "compromise" bill is. Many Republicans in Congress realize this, but the rest of their crowd is too stupid to realize it.
This is a new "Schiavo moment" for the GOP. The more they keep it up, the better for us in the long-run.
Comments are closed on this story.