skippy the bush kangaroo: faced w/facts, repubs can only lie

Friday, March 19, 2010

faced w/facts, repubs can only lie

as the momentum for hcr swings the dems way, the latest foray into desperate measures came from the hardly-ever-right this morning, as an "internal memo" from "democratic sources" made the rounds on the innertubez.

the memo purported to reveal that the congressional budget office purposely left out big hunks of math to make the hcr bill look like it would save more money than it actually would. tho politico (which originally reported the existance of this memo) has pulled its original story, you can read ~~this piece of fiction~~ the memo @ tpm document archive here.

notice that the "from" line has been redacted, but all the lies have been left intact.

washindy:

shortly after politico reported on an “internal democratic memo” telling members to spin away the looming cost of a “doc fix,” republicans began pointing reporters to the story. but two hours after the story went up, tpm reported that democrats were calling the memo a “hoax,” and politico pulled the story. at a 3:30 press conference called “to highlight the concerns over the democrats’ budget gimmick to temporarily exclude a $371 billion ‘doc fix’ from the health reform bill,” reps. eric cantor (r-va.) and paul ryan (r-wis.) quickly dismissed the memo.

kudos, politico, for jumping on a story so quickly! so all that "confirming" stuff just slows you down, eh?

tpmdc elaborates the dems' position:

"we have checked with every democratic office, no one has ever seen it. it did not come out of a democratic office," the aide said, adding that media outlets printing the memo have not checked with leadership offices if the memo is authentic. a second democratic leadership aide confirmed the memo was not sent by the democrats. a third democratic aide also said the memo is fake, citing the "draft" stamp and saying no one uses such things.

"if this were a democratic communications person who wrote this, they should be fired, because this looks like republican talking points," the third democratic aide told tpmdc.

the memo alleging the changes commonly known as a "doc fix" would be politically damaging to democrats, who already are holding together a fragile coalition to get the needed 216 votes sunday.

the politico items quotes from the memo as saying, "we cannot emphasize this enough: do not allow yourself (or your boss) to get into a discussion of the details of cbo scores and textual narrative. instead, focus only on the deficit reduction and number of americans covered."

"this is an unethical underhanded dirty trick by republicans to try and distract from important debate on health care reform," the senior democratic leadership aide said.

it's surely a sign of the hardly-ever-right's desperation that they resort to easily-refuted lies.

or else it's business as usual for the repubs. you decide.

(thx & a tip o' the kangaroo tail to nicole belle on facebook for the heads up!)

addendum: but guess which site has not yet pulled the memo or the assertion that it's real? ding ding ding ding, we have a winner! that's right! it's andrew breitbart!

posted by skippy at 4:13 PM |