Karma Kompromiser: Nancy Pelosi, Health Care and Nazis

I have a pair of Oakley Radar glasses courtesy of Eyetique that I have to test before it gets any cloudier out, so I'm can't invest any time in editing this post, which is really just a collection of links and quotes. Don't take that as an insult though, Dear Reader, for the fact that I'm posting to begin with after the night I just suffered through is evidence of my deep appreciation of you. So here is some random politics-related stuff that's popped up on the Radar recently, and of course a gratuitous Vino shot and Armstrong reference...enjoy your weekend.

Rory Cooper asks if the White House is attacking the advertising base of a TV show just because Obama doesn't like the message being delivered by the show's presenter:

"Making fun of cable news is one thing, but is the White House associated with a campaign to not only discredit their critics but also strangle the financial footing these businesses rely on? These are questions that need answering."

As Joe Gandelman at The Moderate Voice has done an excellent job commenting on Nancy Pelosi's fear of Nazis disrupting the health care reform debate, I'll let his words stand-in for mine today:

"A lot of pundits (including me) have been highly critical of the rhetorical Hiroshimas that some Republicans use when battling Democrats or trying to gain political support by mobilizing their political base. And now we have a classic one coming from the Democrats: the use of the label “un-American” to describe town hall protesters who are effectively drowning out discussion of health care reform..." More

Here is Pelosi's original column, co-authored by Steny Hoyer. And the quote that is of concern to some folks:

"These disruptions are occurring because opponents are afraid not just of differing views — but of the facts themselves. Drowning out opposing views is simply un-American. Drowning out the facts is how we failed at this task for decades."

Thankfully, we have Dennis Miller to counterattack...the transcript of which is recorded here.



Oh, and is Obama keeping a list of un-Americans or not? Don't count on White House Deputy Press Secretary Bill Burton to clear-up that one...



Actually, would you be surprised to learn that we were living in a country in which the government keeps an citizen's enemies list? After all, Lance Armstrong and Johan Bruyneel mastered the media hit-list quite a long time ago:

"Armstrong and his U.S. Postal Service team controlled access to the team tightly, giving them considerable power that could be used bluntly – to deny or grant interviews – or with more subtlety. As Dan Coyle reports in “Lance Armstrong’s War,” OLN never showed Ferrari in its series “The Lance Chronicles,” despite following Lance to Tenerife for training sessions (Ferrari’s hands, in one episode, were the extent of the doctor’s presence in the series). Tenerife, one of the Canary Islands 100 miles off the coast of Africa, was referred to only as Lance’s “European training camp.” (The Canaries are a semi-autonomous protectorate of Spain.) Other racers, including Alexandre Vinokourov, train there as well, and the UCI recently announced it had stepped up target testing on riders who use what it called “strange” training locations. Coyle later writes, “To anger Armstrong was to risk losing access – a potentially career-scuttling loss for underpaid cycling writers for whom access to the Postal team was crucial.” Postal team officials even kept photos of journalists they considered unfriendly to the team – the so-called “black list.”