The latest blog to make this error is Richmond Democrat, in the post "TIME Magazine: "The Swift-Boating of Graeme Frost" ". To be fair to Time magazine, this wasn't a Time Magazine article, but an editorial by one of their writers.
In the editorial, the author properly uses the term "Swift-Boating" to indicate the divulging of facts about a Democratic plan to exploit a family for political purposes. The facts? The family sent their son to read a Senate Staff speech begging George Bush to NOT cut a program he had no plan to cut. The family didn't buy themselves life insurance. They don't send their kids to public school, but instead had found a way to send all four of their kids to expensive private schools, likely using financial aid. The father ran his own business, meaning he was the one who decided not to provide himself or his employees (which apparently was just his wife) with insurance.
We also learned that he owned the building his business was in, and he had a tenant paying rent for part of that building.
Of course, it's what we didn't yet learn that's important. It appears, but we aren't directly told, that the family made little attempt to purchase insurance before their tragic accident. But Maryland had a program they would easily qualify for under the existing, Republican-created CHIPS program, the one they joined when they needed major medical care. They could have been using the program for free to get access to full medical care including well-visits, vaccines, and a prescription drug plan.
The fully qualified for SCHIPS, but if they made a little more money, the Maryland program had a subsidized version which currently charges $57 a month for a family. They weren't close to losing this coverage.
In other words, we learned that this family, living comfortably in a house they own, with a nice kitchen, a nice new SUV, four kids in private school, two jobs, owners of a company and commercial property, were being fully serviced under the existing SCHIP program that President Bush wanted to continue.
They aren't the "poster family" for the Democrat's rediculous expansion of the program. And the only reason they don't have SCHIPs right now is the Democrats are holding them and the program hostage to try to get coverage for much richer families.
Families like the Freeper who did a little web research and discovered the truth. Not that this family was undeserving, or evil as a few are always want to scream on the internet. But that they were a perfect example of how the existing program did NOT NEED ANOTHER 35 BILLION DOLLARS.
But here's what Richmond Democrat had to say:
The story of the Republican Party's sickening political hit job against a 12-year old brain damaged child has gone mainstream.
First of all, this isn't a "political hit job" on anybody, much less a "12-year-old brain-damaged child". In fact, the only people I see disparaging the child or his abilities are democrats, who find it necessary to label the child as nearly incapacitated in order to sell their story. What person "defends" a family by making these comments about a 12-year-old? The Republicans aren't talking about the children, except to note they go to a good private school. It's the DEMOCRATS who disparage the boy, who drag him before the cameras as some puppet, to make a spectacle of him, just to score some cheap political points.
Of course, what political party is so bereft of ideas that it has to trot out 12-year-olds to make their case for them (albeit with their own prepared speeches)? That is the true shame of this.
TIME Magazine eviscerates the Republican Party and its scabrous cadre of hit bloggers.
It wasn't "Time Magazine", it's one writer's opinion column in Time Magazine. Lefties can't really tell the difference between opinion and factual reporting.
The father is right that it's a shame people write nasty e-mails. But it's laughable for RD to suggest this is a purely "republican" phenomena. The internet is full of people who anonymously send horrible things. You should read the e-mail I get for my column. I just ignore it, as anybody who writes in public has to learn to do.
However, I fault the father for one thing -- he has gone NATIONAL, to explain why we should pay for his health insurance, and in fact to argue that we should pay for people who make more than he does as well. He has made his family the "example", and it's irrational to suggest that, having done so, it's unfair for the rest of us not to examine his example and debate the merits of his case.
But this is how Democrats argue -- they pretend they are engaging in a real debate, but do so behind 12-year-old boys. When Republicans make the mistake of thinking Democrats actually want to discuss the MERITS of the issue, and start talking about it, the Democrats castigate them for "attacking brain-damaged-12-year-olds", or "9/11 widows", or whatever "victim" the Democrats chose to hide behind so they wouldn't have to argue the merits.
Does Richmond Democrat WANT to argue the merits of providing free health care to a family like the Frosts? Does he WANT to discuss whether a program that already served the Frost Family, and would continue to do so, really needs an extra 35 BILLION dollars to cover higher-income people?
Apparently not, he just wants to complain about anybody questioning why the Democrats drug a 12-year-old into an adult discussion, and then got mad when we tried to have the discussion anyway.
This is an enormous black eye for the Republican Party and right wing bloggers in general. The decision to harass a 12-year old was dubious, at best, but to get the facts of the case wrong?!
I'd love to see RD actually provide an example of what we got wrong. The Baltimore Sun already had to make several corrections to THEIR reporting on the family, all in favor of the facts as we learned them. The only mistake the original freeper made was to credit the family with paying for their own children's education -- it turns out they are getting someone else to pay for that as well. Why that's an argument in their favor, I don't know, it seems to just point out even more how much we already do for families like this.
It is true that some bloggers got facts wrong. I would note that not a day ago, the entire left-wing virginia blogosphere was calling a republican candidate, Holtzman-Vogel, a criminal for taking false tax credits. Oops, that story was a total fabrication. But you don't see republicans calling national press conferences to condemn them for their lies. The Washington Post screwed that up as well.
You'd like to think the Democrats were learn their lesson, and stop dragging 12-year-olds in front of them to fight their battles for them. But don't count on it -- it's what they know. Hide behind the children, the poor, the homeless, the downtrodden -- any human shield to protect them from criticism.
Meanwhile, who really cares about this family? The Republicans, and President Bush. We stand ready to pass and sign an SCHIP bill that increases spending by 5 billion dollars, and would fully cover this family for all their child's medical needs. Of course, we republicans already gave them a strong, growing economy where he, a self-described hard-working poor person, could in fact not only own his own home but also his own business. We gave them tax cuts, we GAVE THEM the SCHIP program. And we are ready to extend it for them.
The democrats are busy calling their children brain-damaged, and holding the family hostage so they can get a big tax increas on poor smokers to give medical "insurance" to people making up to $80,000 a year, and to 25-year-old "children". All part of taking over the health care system, which will destroy it.
Don't expect R-D to apologize for HIS attacks on the child. It's not part of the liberal playbook.
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