Rick Perlstein's Asinine Take on the Health Care Town Yells

I kind of like what our friends at RSU call the health care town yells. They're speaking truth to power, while--unlike left-liberal protests--not blocking traffic.

They're also generating an amusing amount of asinine wailing by left-liberal elites. Take, for example, Rick Perlstein's execrable column in the WaPo:

So the birthers, the anti-tax tea-partiers, the town hall hecklers -- these are "either" the genuine grass roots or evil conspirators staging scenes for YouTube? The quiver on the lips of the man pushing the wheelchair, the crazed risk of carrying a pistol around a president -- too heartfelt to be an act. The lockstep strangeness of the mad lies on the protesters' signs -- too uniform to be spontaneous. They are both. If you don't understand that any moment of genuine political change always produces both, you can't understand America, where the crazy tree blooms in every moment of liberal ascendancy, and where elites exploit the crazy for their own narrow interests.

He concludes:

The various elements -- the liberal earnestly confused when rational dialogue won't hold sway; the anti-liberal rage at a world self-evidently out of joint; and, most of all, their mutual incomprehension -- sound as fresh as yesterday's news.

The classic liberal lie: "we lefties are rational, nice, kind people who are puzzled by conservative crazies. We've got no crazies on our side, of course. Just nice rational people like me."

Oh, yeah? How about:

1. The Weathermen: "With a charismatic[3] and articulate[4] leadership whose revolutionary positions were characterized by anti-imperialist, feminist, and Black liberationist rhetoric,[2] the group conducted a campaign of bombings through the mid-1970s, including aiding the jailbreak and escape of Timothy Leary. The "Days of Rage," their first public demonstration on October 8, 1969, was a riot in Chicago timed to coincide with the trial of the Chicago Seven. In 1970 the group issued a "Declaration of a State of War" against the United States government, under the name "Weather Underground Organization" (WUO)."
2. Act Up: "In December 1989, approximately 4,500 protestors arrived at St. Patrick's Cathedral during Mass in a demonstration directed toward the Roman Catholic Archdiocese's public stand against AIDS education and condom distribution, as well as its opposition to abortion.[12] One-hundred and eleven protesters were arrested. Camille Paglia wrote in a December 2008 Salon column that a consecrated Host was desecrated by a protester, an act considered by Catholics to be blasphemous and an outrage."
3. The SEIU: ""The violence in Michigan and the specific targeting of women labor leaders is reprehensible and should have no place in our labor movement or our country," said Rose Ann DeMoro, executive director of CNA/NNOC. "For Andy Stern to direct this attack and its cover up is abusive, immoral, and unacceptable behavior. He demonstrates why RNs across the country want no part of an organization like seiu."
4. Code Pink: Blocking Marine recruiting stations, tying up traffic, disrupting Congressional hearings, and, worst of all, protesting outside Walter Reed Army Hospital.
5. ALF and ELF: Eco-terrorism, with numerous attacks on property, including those of many of my colleagues at UCLA
6. Unions: "The National Institute for Labor Relations Research has compiled a list of incidents of union violence that average nearly 300 per year for the last 30 years."
7. The people who forged Bush's supposed National Guard records. 
8. And that's just what I came up with off the top of my head... 

  As for astroturfing, that's clearly happening:

While President Obama has focused attention on "special interests" that are mobilizing to try to defeat his health-care plan, the liberal group MoveOn.org is trying to mobilize people to attend congressional town hall meetings to push for the plan, and especially to push for a government-run “public option” insurance program.
MoveOn.org is even suggesting brief statements people can make in favor of a “public option” health care plan if they attend a town hall, and gives people the opportunity to download signs indicating their approval of the "public option" that they can print and carry into the meetings.

And so I have a word of advice for Perlstein:

You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye.

Read before commenting: Let me remind you that the comments block clearly states: "Comments are moderated, and will not appear until the author has approved them." This means your comments will not appear instantaneously. Instead, they will be approved the next time I log on the computer, assuming there is nothing profane, obscene, racist, or libelous in the comment. If I'm walking my dogs, or cooking supper, or taking a nap, there may well be a delay. It might be an extensive delay. But, to paraphrase Ronald Reagan, I own this microphone. I work for me, not for commenters. Complaining that your precious comment wasn't posted within six minutes thus is just silly.

Comments

[Rick Perlstein]

I hate the Weathermen. Read my book. So does everyone I know on the left. And they didn't have any friends who were senators.

[Steve ("Professor") Bainbridge]

Mr Perlstein: I don't find your comment here anymore persuasive than your column. After all Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn seem to have a friend in the White House.
In any case, where do you stand on the rest of the left's crazies?

[politicalfootball]

There are a lot of liberals saying what you accuse Perlstein of saying, but Perlstein isn't one of them. Perlstein's interest here isn't aggressive protest or violence, but a particular strain of irrationality, and how the Republican establishment encourages it.

I think Perlstein gives these protesters a lot of credit for being a genuine democratic movement. I suspect he'd find your comparison of their organizing efforts and those of Moveon to have some merit. Again, Perlstein's interest is in the craziness, and he doesn't find Moveon crazy. Do you?

Perlstein (again, unlike many liberals) doesn't use the word "astroturf," nor does he endeavor to describe an astroturf-type operation. If anything, he emphasizes the grassroots nature of the dissent and the distant nature of the encouragement - such as Nixon's discovery of the socialist blueprint.

There's always been an understanding among Republican elites - largely unspoken, maybe even largely unrecognized by some of them - that the nuts should be encouraged because they serve broader policy aims. For example, Perlstein thinks the guy in the wheelchair isn't going to lose his insurance under the Democrats' plan, and I'll bet you think that, too. Yet you are able to say about the fellow pushing the wheelchair that he is "speaking truth to power" because, unlike Perlstein, you're not interested in his lunacy, but in how his behavior serves your policy preference.

[Steve ("Professor") Bainbridge]

Political: Read the column. In partcular that line, "the liberal earnestly confused when rational dialogue won't hold sway." The whole gist of this piece is that liberals are nice, rational, earnest people and that the crazies are all on the right. It's a smarmy and offensive column, which caught me on a bad day, so I gave it the flip of the middle finger it so richly deserved.

As for MoveOn, I find them annoying but rarely crazy.

BTW, where do you stand on The Weathermen et al.?

[Mike Myers]

I'm confused. Barbara Boxer told me not to wear Brooks Brothers--so I wore Nordstrom's to Congressman Adam Schiff's town hall in Alhambra this week. The only shoving and yelling that I saw came from the pro Obama types: SEIU, California School Employees Assn; California Nurse's Association, ACORN, AFL-CIO et. The lunacy on display came from the Lyndon La Rouche followers--but that's been a steady state condition since at least the mid 1970s when they were claiming that US nuclear plants were better built than Jane Fonda--which assumes a fact not in evidence. Lighten up liberals--the middle class proles will speak from time to time.

[ashok]

I think this blogpost is excellent, and the argument is as clear and powerful as can be. But it only manages to identify and emphasize hypocrisy, not properly consider what is good. I do think that long-term, the town hall yells are problematic: anger alone can only go so far, and I don't know how rational I want to term all the activity on the Right is on the whole, even if much of that activity is justified, and many involved are well-meaning.

The long-term threat from all activism on the Left and Right - esp. activism that routinely compares any sitting President to Hitler - is the subversion of rule of law. You can see a bit of that, weirdly enough, in the reaction to Michael Vick, where very few disgusted at his employment seem to his being tried and sent to prison as having anything to do with justice:

http://www.ashokkarra.com/2009/08/populist-rage-the-rule-of-law-and-michael-vick/

[Jeffersonian]

I, for one, refuse to play the Left's game of accepting the premise that we need a national health care system run by federal bureaucrats and that we all need to be "rational" about it debating the details of the proposed legislation.

My position is that the federal government doesn't have the Constitutional authority to create, fund or administer such a system and, even if they did, would lack the knowledge to effectively do so.

To me, health care reform consists entirely of the federal government backing away from its meddling in people's decisions to purchase health insurance. How do I do that with a debate about these fatuous bills?

[Kyle Bennett]

The Republicans elites are to the Tea Parties and health-care protest movement what a dog is to a car he is chasing. He has no idea where it's going, and if he caught it, he'd have no idea what to do with it. And the people in the car would just laugh - if they didn't run it over because they didn't even notice it was there.

But yes, the dog is trying very hard.

[David]

"I hate the Weathermen. . . So does everyone I know on the left. And they didn't have any friends who were senators."

Posted by: Rick Perlstein | 08/15/2009 at 02:38 PM

Ummm. Isn't Obama a friend of Ayers and Dorn? Isn't Obama on the left? Wasn't Obama a Senator?

Is Perlstein really that dumb?

[Patrick Carroll]

Leftists are ahistorical because it makes it easier for them to construct their Sorelian myths.

Trying to make a leftist remember the crimes of the left is like wrestling a greased pig: you get nothing but dirty, and the pig enjoys it.

[kcom]

"BTW, where do you stand on The Weathermen et al.?"

It doesn't matter where he stands on them, the point is they are clearly on the left. Which proves your point, that the assumption (and self-congratulation) of too many on the left that the left is uniformly righteous, rational and interested only in sophisticated dialogue is a crock.

Of course, people like Mr. Perlstein don't want to be tarred with that brush so they look past all the left wing crazies and pretend they don't exist, while focusing on exactly the same element on the right side and pretending that's all there is. That's how they come up with that patently ridiculous pseudo-equivalency comparison of the rational person on the left failing having a failure to communicate with that crazy person on the right. It's self-satisfying bs, but of course the feeling of righteous self-satisfaction is a high-tier value on the left.

[jacksmith]

Throw The Healthcare Obstructionist Out!

More than two thirds of the American people want a single payer health care system. And if they cant have a single payer system 76% of all Americans want a strong government-run public option on day one (85% of democrats, 71% of independents, and 60% republicans). Basically everyone.

We have the 37th worst quality of healthcare in the developed world. And the most costly. Costing over twice as much as every other county. Conservative estimates are that over 120,000 of you dies each year in America from treatable illness that people in other developed countries don't die from. Rich, middle class, and poor a like. Insured and uninsured. Men, women, children, and babies. This is what being 37th in quality of healthcare means.

I know that many of you are angry and frustrated that REPUBLICANS! In congress are dragging their feet and trying to block TRUE healthcare reform. What republicans want is just a taxpayer bailout of the DISGRACEFUL GREED DRIVEN PRIVATE FOR PROFIT health insurance industry, and the DISGRACEFUL GREED DRIVEN PRIVATE FOR PROFIT healthcare industry. A trillion dollar taxpayer funded private health insurance bailout is all you really get, without a robust government-run public option available on day one. Co-OP's ARE NOT A SUBSTITUTE FOR A GOVERNMENT-RUN PUBLIC OPTION. They are a fraud being pushed by the GREED DRIVEN PRIVATE FOR PROFIT health insurance industry that is KILLING YOU!

YOU CANT HAVE AN INSURANCE MANDATE WITHOUT A ROBUST PUBLIC OPTION. MANDATING PRIVATE FOR PROFIT HEALTH INSURANCE AS YOUR ONLY CHOICE WOULD BE A DISASTER. AND UNETHICAL, CORRUPT, AND MORALLY REPUGNANT. AND PROBABLY UNCONSTITUTIONAL AS WELL.

These industries have been slaughtering you and your loved ones like cattle for decades for profit. Including members of congress and their families. These REPUBLICANS are FOOLS!

Republicans and their traitorous allies have been trying to make it look like it's President Obama's fault for the delays, and foot dragging. But I think you all know better than that. President Obama inherited one of the worst government catastrophes in American history from these REPUBLICANS! And President Obama has done a brilliant job of turning things around, and working his heart out for all of us.

But Republicans think you are just a bunch of stupid, idiot, cash cows with short memories. Just like they did under the Bush administration when they helped Bush and Cheney rape America and the rest of the World.

But you don't have to put up with that. And this is what you can do. The Republicans below will be up for reelection on November 2, 2010. Just a little over 13 months from now. And many of you will be able to vote early. So pick some names and tell their voters that their representatives (by name) are obstructing TRUE healthcare reform. And are sellouts to the insurance and medical lobbyist.

Ask them to contact their representatives and tell them that they are going to work to throw them out of office on November 2, 2010, if not before by impeachment, or recall elections. Doing this will give you something more to do to make things better in America. And it will make you feel better too.

There are many resources on the internet that can help you find people to call and contact. For example, many social networking sites can be searched by state, city, or University. Be inventive and creative. I can think of many ways to do this. But be nice. These are your neighbors. And most will want to help.

I know there are a few democrats that have been trying to obstruct TRUE healthcare reform too. But the main problem is the Bush Republicans. Removing them is the best thing tactically to do. On the other hand. If you can easily replace a democrat obstructionist with a supportive democrat, DO IT!

You have been AMAZING!!! people. Don't loose heart. You knew it wasn't going to be easy saving the World. :-)

God Bless You

jacksmith — Working Class

Twitter search (#welovethenhs) Check it out.

I REST MY CASE (http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/07/25/why-markets-cant-cure-healthcare/)

Republican Senators up for re-election in 2010.

* Richard Shelby of Alabama
* Lisa Murkowski of Alaska
* John McCain of Arizona
* Mel Martinez of Florida
* Johnny Isakson of Georgia
* Mike Crapo of Idaho
* Chuck Grassley of Iowa
* Sam Brownback of Kansas
* Jim Bunning of Kentucky
* David Vitter of Louisiana
* Kit Bond of Missouri
* Judd Gregg of New Hampshire
* Richard Burr of North Carolina
* George Voinovich of Ohio
* Tom Coburn of Oklahoma
* Jim DeMint of South Carolina
* John Thune of South Dakota
* Kay Bailey Hutchison of Texas
* Bob Bennett of Utah

[Gringo]

Rick Perlstein
I hate the Weathermen. Read my book. So does everyone I know on the left. And they didn't have any friends who were senators.

Yes, this is an incredibly rich statement, considering that Billy "I want a dictatorship of the proletariat" Ayers is a buddy of a former Senator now President of the United States.

[Richard Blaine]

The Symbionese Liberation Army, The Unibomber, Baader-Meinhof, Black Panthers (who just got a major free pass), Earth First, Fidel, Che, The Bolshevics, Lenin, Stalin, Trotsky...

[Wells]

Perlstein can't have it both ways.

The last eight years have seen an orgy of irrational, vicious hatred from the Left, exemplified by their anti-war movement (though they showed up for social security reform and other Bush initiatives).

He's doing his best to lump the fringe at tea party protests in with the overall conservative movement, but then goes and denies that the Leftist crazies have any support, defining them out of his movement. He's ignored the very real, very rational, very factual arguments against nationalized healthcare, while focusing exclusively on the arguments for it.

My experience with the Left is that there was anger: elemental, primal rage. First it was directed against President Bush and his administration, and now the new target is Sarah Palin and her children.

When it comes to the issues, there's a lot of hate-mongering against doctors, hospitals, insurers, drug companies. Lots of appeals to help the 500 billion or whatever number they're claiming today are uninsured. But precious little argument as to which policy should be enacted and why. Just "there needs to be a change, therefore we need to vote for THIS change". That's mostly because there's no particular plan up for debate, just a Frankenstein's monster, a melange of fragments of a bill floating around committee. There IS no plan, therefore there's nothing to defend.... so all that the Liberals have left is attack.

Since you seem to be reading the comments, Mr. Perlstein, could you link to your columns where you express concern about the tone and tenor of the anti-war movement? Perhaps ANSWER's behavior? You seem to be refuted regarding the Weathermen, but perhaps you can establish that one of the other organizations on the Bainbridge list isn't supported by both elected Democrats and Liberal pundits?

[Tom in GA]

"There's always been an understanding among Republican elites - largely unspoken, maybe even largely unrecognized by some of them - that the nuts should be encouraged because they serve broader policy aims."

Sounds like left-wing projection to me.

[chrisa798]

I actually find it difficult to have a "rational dialogue" with lefties -- they rarely want to follow a logical argument that extends below the surface (answering the concern on public option leading to socialized medicine with "that's just a fox news talking point"), are VERY quick in their resort to personal attacks, and often refuse to be honest about what they really want (if they want socialized medicine, which they seem to, be honest about it and the costs).

Worst of all, they seem unable to acknowledge that someone can act in good faith and differ with them (I have to conceal my libertarian-conservative politics enough to have experienced what they say among friends and have no doubt here).

I once debated 3 then-friends re affirmative action for about 2 hours. They then went around telling everyone I was a racist.

I have several times debated pro-lifers--they will try persuasion for hours but I've never had to pull a dagger out of my back.

Professor, thanks for not backing down.

[Minerva]

I remember the day after Reagan was elected in 1980. A union guy I knew angrily blamed "those goddam PACs." I reminded him that unions and the AFL-CIO had long before 1980 used PACs too.

[Clem]

...Republican establishment encourages it

this says you think holding the opinion that whatever the govt. does, it will do for higher costs, and more headache.

My health care is not broken, but my govt. is, so which should us crazy people focus our attention on?

Timmy the tax cheat comes to mind.

[Brian]

Obama himself is a good example of the false self-conception of liberals. Alleged to be an intellectual, he has accomplished very little intellectually. Never made a a ripple at the University of Chicago School of Law; the students liked him, but the faculty wondered why he never participated in discussions or debates, and generally did nothing to further develop ideas. Never published a single scholarly article in his career. Was good at "community organizing," which for the Left means gathering people together chant slogans, demonize opponents and demand free stuff from the government. Dutifully campaigned on the same non-intellectual "Hope & Change" drivel that Axelrod already test-marketed with Deval Patrick, the Governor of Massachusetts, using many of the same speeches ("'Just words?' Was it 'just words' when" blah blah blah...")

In the present health care debate, Obama offers little by way or argument. He does not cite passages from the present bills, and project the real-world consequences of such passages, as do Obama's opponents, including Townhall protesters. Rather, Obama has his subordinates slander Townhall protesters as thugs, and then he simply repeats the same false and conclusory talking points over and over ("You can keep your private insurance," etc.)

But because Obama cops the mannerisms of an intellectual, dumb people and liberal think that he is smart.

[Jeff]

Some more lefty crazies:
1. Seattle WTO rioters.
2. Al Sharpton and his race rioters.
3. Code Pink interrupting McCain's nomination acceptance speech.
4. Lefty birthers convinced that Sarah Palin isn't Trig's mother.
5. Cynthia McKinney.

[Chuck Pelto]

TO: Perlstein
RE: What....

The various elements -- the liberal earnestly confused when rational dialogue won't hold sway; the anti-liberal rage at a world self-evidently out of joint; and, most of all, their mutual incomprehension -- sound as fresh as yesterday's news. -- Perstein

...a crock.

And disprovable by visiting any controversial topical thread at Pajamas Media.

Then there is my state's former state senator Ken Gordon's web site, where I've offered cogent debate and nair a sole responded. They flee in fear. Why? Because they don't know (1) how to read the legislation (HR 3200) and/or (2) can't discuss anything in a rational manner. Probably BOTH.

TO: All
RE: Perlstein, et al.

The so-called 'liberals' are not liberal at all. They're 'progressives' and never was there a worse group of rank hypocrites in modern times.

Regards,

Chuck(le)
[The Truth will out.....]

[RM3 Frisker FTN]

NOT AN URBAN LEGEND - Congress Exempting Itself From Health Care Reform.

Start reading at pg 113, line 22 of SENATE version of the Health Care Reform Bill (http://help.senate.gov/BAI09A84_xml.pdf). It describes who will be and will not be covered by health care reform.

If you are NOT eligible for Federal employee health benefits, as described in US Code Title 5 Chapter 89, then Health Care Reform WILL apply to you.

If you ARE eligible for Federal employee health benefits, as described in US Code Title 5 Chapter 89, then Health Care Reform will NOT apply to you.

Now who is eligible for Federal employee health benefits, as described in US Code Title 5 Chapter 89?

Surf over to US Code Title 5 Chapter 89 … http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/5/usc_sup_01_5_10_III_20_G_30_89.html

For purposes of US Code Title 5 Chapter 89, members of Congress, political appointees, federal employees (obviously), and many others are eligible for Federal employee health benefits.

CONCLUSION: The Senate is attempting to exempt itself from Health Care Reform. Congress, Federal Employees, and other ‘chosen’ ones will get a different plan from the one that will be inflicted upon the rest of us.

SIDE-NOTE: When critiquing/supporting health care reform, please quote chapter & verse from the bill (House or Senate version, page #, line #).

[Cecil Turner]

"The orchestration of incivility happens, too, and it is evil. Liberal power of all sorts induces an organic and crazy-making panic in a considerable number of Americans . . ."

This is truly hilarious. Perhaps Mr Perlstein has forgotten "Bushitler," "General Betrayus," and "no blood for oil" (or DailyKos, nutroots, and truthers), but many of us have not. The pretense that the right has a monopoly, or even a fair share, of crazies should be impossible to scribe with a straight face.

Besides, comparing a bunch of folks standing up in town halls with crazies is patently unfair. Per Rasmussen, more than 50% of the electorate would rather see no health care bill than any of the options currently being debated . . . and yet their elected representatives are blithely ignoring them. Gee, wonder why they're irritated.

And this bit is typical lefty hubris:
"Latest word is that the enlightened and mild provision in the draft legislation to help elderly people who want living wills -- the one hysterics turned into the "death panel" canard . . ."

Sarah Palin complained on her facebook page about rationed care, and the President pointed to a completely irrelevant section (1233) about counseling, which all the lefties lapped up like it was Gospel. There's a problem in the debate, all right, and strawmen like this are a big part of it. If lefties would spend a bit of that "earnest confusion" on trying to understand why >50% of the electorate reject their product, maybe they'd get somewhere. Or they can just call everyone who doesn't cheer for the new 1.042 trillion dollar proposal "stupid" or "crazy" and see how that works.

[me.yahoo.com/a/tTeG9JcAiZBExaxoN5BdFA3azOwj1XDUwWDNK.UPwk_HZBe9Cw--]

Rick:

Why do you say that Ayers and Dohrn "didn't have any friends who were senators"?

Ayers was Barack Obama's mentor into the world of Chicago foundations. Obama served with Ayers on two foundations founded or controlled by Ayers (one of which wasn't mentioned during the campaign last year) and on a third foundation over which Ayers had considerable influence. Ayers and Dohrn were among Obama's earliest supporters. Obama blurbed one of Ayers's books, which is often a favor done for a friend.

And some time ago Dohrn spoke very fondly of Obama to me.

Why wouldn't they be friends? If the Weather Underground connection had repulsed Obama, he wouldn't have taken the risk of blurbing Ayers's book. Nor would Obama have become so intimately involved in working with Ayers in the 1990s and pushing his reform agenda for the Chicago public schools.

Whatever people on the left generally think of the Weather Underground, FORMER Weather Underground members are well regarded in Chicago. It is my impression that Dohrn has been an effective fundraiser and clinician on my faculty. As Mayor Daley said about Ayers, he is a reformer in good standing in this town.

Jim Lindgren
Professor
Northwestern University
Chicago, IL