http://swampland.blogs.time.com/2009/09/21/more-bad-republican-form/More Bad Republican Form
Posted by Michael Scherer Monday, September 21, 2009 at 3:38 pm
About a month ago, a Republican National Committee mailer surfaced, showing that the party had sent out a bogus "poll." The poll asked recipients if they were concerned that Democrats would pass health care reform that would deny Republicans treatment because they were Republicans. This ridiculous and false notion, the mailer said, "has been suggested" by unknown forces. When I called the RNC for comment, a spokesman admitted the shameless ploy had been "inartfully worded."
Now comes word, via Sam Stein at Huffington Post, that the National Republican Senatorial Committee is trying to fool Americans with the same trick. Their bogus "poll" asks:
Are you concerned that health care rationing could lead to:
23. Denial of treatment in cases where the patient's prospects are deemed not good?
24. A "lottery" system of determining who will get priority treatment?
25. A "quota" system which would determine who would get treatment on the basis of race or age?
Needless to say, none of these things have been proposed in either house of Congress. None of them will pass. The mailer also suggests that the following ideas are "up for debate" in Congress over the coming weeks, including whether or not the government gets to:
• Pick who is "eligible" for certain medical procedures? • Pick your doctor for you? • Restrict certain medical procedures on the basis of age? • Put strict price controls on medicine and drugs? • Penalize you for choosing to see a private doctor • Seriously undermine private health care insurers who currently serve tens of millions of Americans?
In a just, fully functioning Democratic debate, there would be consequences for such fearmongering by a major political party. Texas Sen. John Cornyn, who signs the direct mail piece, would actually be forced to either defend the document, by backing up the claims with actual evidence that these claims are in any way relevant to the current discussion, or he would be discredited as someone willing to fool people--not to mention the elderly--for political advantage.
But this is not a fully functioning Democratic system. I have nonetheless, asked the NRSC for comment. I am told I will get a response, which I will post promptly.
UPDATE: Brian Walsh a spokesman for the NRSC did call me back, and defended the mailer, not as a description of any of the Democratic plans, but rather as an open-ended musing on possible health care reform ideas. "It simply poses questions," said Walsh. "In looking at it, it doesn't say definitely what the president's health care plan is." Walsh added that no one knows what the final Obama health care legislation might contain. "He has not put forward legislative text," he said. "We have no idea what the Democratic bill is going to look like."
So in other words, Walsh is maintaining that the most alarming parts of the faux poll do not describe anything that Democrats or Obama has proposed, but rather describe things that could still be proposed at some point in the future to surprise everybody. Needless to say, it is rather unlikely--call it completely inconceivable--that Obama or Democratic leaders would introduce an 11th-hour amendment to deny health care to Americans based on race. What may be more interesting is the tactic at play. This is another version of a "The Great Unknown" attack on Obama, a technique I have previously described, in which opponents choose to critique Obama not for what he is doing, but for what is unknown about his actions or what he might do.
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