Once again, the mainstream media covers for the unhappy Barney Frank, reporting his arrogance as a principled reaction to a troglodytic Republican.  In an article for the AP, a reporter neglects the many times the cranky Democrat condescended to his constituents to focus on an exchange with an unhinged left-winger:

Rep. Barney Frank lashed out at protester who held a poster depicting President Barack Obama with a Hitler-style mustache during a heated town hall meeting on federal health care reform.

“On what planet do you spend most of your time?” Frank asked the woman, who had stepped up to the podium at a southeastern Massachusetts senior center to ask why Frank supports what she called a Nazi policy.

“Ma’am, trying to have a conversation with you would be like trying to argue with a dining room table. I have no interest in doing it,” Frank replied.

Now, I agree with those who consider it inappropriate to compare the President to Hitler, but wonder whether, during the first eight years of the current decade, Mr. Frank ever faulted his ideological confrères for making such comparisons to the previous president.  (I’ll link any examples readers can provide.)

Now, first, let’s address one thing the AP reporter left out and one fallacy he let in.  He did not tell us that the woman asking the question is a LaRouche Democrat.  And the unnamed journalist identifies Sheila Leavitt as a physician when she is anything but.

The reporter, well, maybe the editor writing the headline did get something right, the mean-spirited man from Massachusetts did lash out — as he often does — and not just against left-wing loonies.

Left-wing extremists do have a habit of comparing American Presidents and their policies to the Nazis and theirs.  If it is wrong to compare Barack Obama to Adolf Hitler (and I believe it is), then it was wrong to compare George W. Bush to that murderous tyrant and thug.  It would be far easier to take seriously those leveling the complaints today if they could provide evidence that they, in the previous eight years, made similar criticisms of those agitating against that Republican.

Scour the mainstream media for the first eight years of the current decade and you will invariably find a reference to the nefarious machinations of the diabolical Karl Rove.  In nearly every single report, you’ll find that the accusations against that good man and shrewd political tactician were based more on circumstantial evidence, innuendo and prejudice than anything else.

No one, for example, has been able to substantiate the “conventional wisdom” that Rove was behind the spate of initiatives defining marriage on various state ballots in 2004.

When evidence emerges, however, that a Rove counterpart in the Obama campaign/Administration, David Axelrod is drawing money from a firm tapped to make ads touting Obamacare (and with money from those dread pharmaceutical industry), there is virtual silence in the mainstream media.

Rove never profited from deals like this, getting the Administration’s lobbyist allies to pay his firm to produce ads while working in the White House as senior adviser to the President.

Over at Politico (via Glenn), Ben Smith observes:

It’s hard to imagine a situation in which, say, Karl Rove was still getting checks from a firm that was, in turn, employed by the drug lobby not drawing fire from the left, and Axelrod’s arrangement is, a bit belatedly, getting that attention.

UPDATE: Thanks to the blogs, looks like this is finally getting some MSM notice.

FROM THE COMMENTS:  An insightful collegiate blogger offers:

I don’t think it’s a political conflict of interest. Axelfraud supports government-run healthcare, and now he’s getting paid to support it, so it doesn’t change anything.

Left-wing bloggers have made much of the fact that at a few of rallies and town halls, a handful of opponents of Obamacare, have arrived bearing arms.  Finding in this smattering “escalating number of incidents,” blogger Josh Marshall proclaims in high dudgeon that “the American right has a deep-seated problem with political violence.”

The only problem with Marshall’s analysis is that the “right-wingers” he identifies as exemplary of this problem engaged in their violent activities in the 1990s and neither of them (he identifies only two incidents) had ties to the type of conservative organizations helping organize (or participating in) the current round of protests.  They’re as representative of the modern conservative movement as Fred Phelps is of the Democratic Party.

And as Glenn (who alerted me to the Marshall post) points out, violence at these rallies has been directed against, not promoted by, those protesting the President’s plan.

That said, I agree with John Hinderaker; it’s a pretty dumb idea to bring guns to political rallies.

Bob Owens sums it up:

As much as I support the open carry movement in theory, I have a very hard time seeing open carry at a political event full of people as anything other than a very bad idea. It is needlessly provocative (and I suspect in many instances, purposefully so), and potentially dangerous.

While the protestors themselves may not have any intent to use the firearms they are carrying, open carry in dense, emotional crowds opens up a whole host of possible scenarios that could end in disaster.

Not just that, the whole idea of political rally is, in line, with the First Amendment to “peaceably assemble.”  Bringing a gun to a rally suggests the bearer has some other purpose in mind.  Not just that, those who bear arms at such rallies give left-wingers ammunition to attack those who wish to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

In the past decade, there has been a spate of books with titles of the year, their authors believe, was seminal in national or world history.  Perhaps, their attention to the significance of dates is in response to the trend in the 1970s to de-emphasize dates in studying the events of the past.  On book, April 1865, even goes so far as to define one particular month as significant.  Other important years become books include 1066*, 1421, 1434, 1453, 1776 and 1948**.

Last year, Charles Freeman came along with A.D. 381, suggesting that events of that year led to the dawn of the Dark Ages.  And while Freeman makes a strong case that Roman Emperor Theodosius’ decree defining Christian orthodoxy and so ending a spirited debate on divinity and the trinity, he spends fare more time discussing events in previous years (and subsequent ones) to convince that 381 was indeed as seminal as he claims.

That said, he distills a lot of information to make an important point about the end of debate and the decline (and eventual collapse) of the Roman Empire:

The tragedy of Thoedosius’ (sic) imposition and its aftermath lay in the elimination of discussion, not only of spiritual matters but across the whole spectrum of human knowledge.  ‘Pagan’ thinkers shared with many Christians a belief that freedom of debate was an essential part of a healthy society.  The Nicene debates themselves show that intellectual progress was being made, because the participants were continually revising their positions in response to each other.  From 381 onwards, Theodosius and his successors eliminated the tradition of free speech.  By deriding the opponents of Nicaea as ‘demented heretics’ and threatening them with the weight of the law and eternal punishment, they destroyed the possibilities of continuing debate.”

Emphasis added.

Deriding opponents?   Hmm. . . . . where else do we see that going on?  Eliminating discussion, you know like that leader telling us “the time for talk is through,” that Democrat who told us that he doesn’t want certain folks doing a lot of talking.

Like those Romans who brought us the Dark Ages, Obama and his Democrats have derided their opponents so as to discredit their opinions and speak longingly of silencing us as well.  Let’s hope they don’t succeed, lest history repeat itself.

* (more…)

Seems like most people are getting pretty good health care after all: Life expectancy in US up, deaths not, CDC says.

I expect Yahoo! to pull this from its top headlines any moment now.

And one of the things that I’m trying to break is a pattern in Washington where everybody is always looking for somebody else to blame.

President Barack Obama
The Tonight Show With Jay Leno (March 2009)

New White House Strategy: Blame Everybody Else

Matthew Continetti, The Weekly Standard

RELATED:  Democrats: We Can’t Pass Health Care Because of Those Damn Republicans

Last night, I took my health insurance broker out for a steak dinner with all the trimmings, including a bottle of wine, at a restaurant that was, well, not cheap in Beverly Hills.  You see, before he became my insurance broker, he was just a friend, a fellow graduate of America’s finest liberal arts’ college and an all-around nice guy.

A few months ago, upset that the premiums on my HMO had skyrocketed (I was paying almost $6,000 a year for health insurance), I asked him if he could get me a cheaper plan which gave me more choices.  And perhaps as a bit of rhetorical flourish, I offered to buy him a dinner worth the cost of the difference in my monthly premium.

And I’m a man of my word.

He helped me navigate through the complexity of the many competing plans to find one more appropriate for a healthy guy like myself than the one I had purchased without fully knowing the choices available to me.  (In a later post, if there’s interest, I can explain how I got stuck in the high-paying HMO.)

Thanks to his knowledge of the industry (far greater than my own), I was able to make an informed choice, taking a different plan with different benefits at a different carrier at a much lower price (the full cost of the dinner for both of us, including tip,was roughly equivalent to my monthly savings).

Up until recently, I simply did not know the choices available to the average American.  From my conversations with others, I gather they are as much in the dark as I once was.  Based on what I read in the press, I had simply assumed it would be difficult for me, as an individual, to get health care coverage.

What is needed in the current debate is what I needed in my search for a better plan more appropriate to my needs:  better information.  (more…)

. . . but Democrats get a pass when they so describe “opponents of the Democratic agenda.”

Just like his one-time House colleague, Ma’am Barbara Boxer, the unhappy Barney Frank, first elected to Congress in 1980 (and only once, as an adult, having a job outside the public sector) prefers demeaning his constituents to acknowledging the sincerity of their concerns.

Barney, Barney, Barney, you of all people to get upset when someone yells at you.  Oh, Barney, people are upset.  Have you ever consider how your actions in Congress might contribute to this?  You should take heed to your Connecticut colleague who understands why people might be angry about what you guys are trying to do in Washington.

A man, who accuses Republicans of being racist, questions his constituents’ thoughtfulness!?!?  And then he asks, “What’s the matter with y’all?”  A question he might better ask himself.

Via JammieWearingFool who writes:

Even in the bluest of blue states the angry mob is keeping the heat on the mealy-mouthed Democrats. Tonight Barney Frank got an earful in South Dartmouth, MA. True to form he insults his constituents.

Maybe Republicans in the Bay State can find an entrepreneur to ran against this means-spirited man and remove this partisan from the public eye.

(H/t:  Glenn and Hot Air.)

Looks like Ma’am Boxer’s going to have an opponent with deep pockets:

Former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina inched closer Tuesday toward a run for U.S. Senate next year, filing paperwork that will allow her to begin raising money for polling, political consultants and other preparations as she nears a formal decision in the next several weeks.

Fiorina, a Republican who served as a top surrogate to John McCain’s 2008 presidential campaign, has strongly signaled that she will challenge three-term Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer in 2010. On Tuesday, she announced that she has filed forms with the IRS to create a political bank account, which she is calling “Carly for California.”

My advice to Ms. Fiorina:  Keep Ma’am on the defensive.  Remember, Ma’am’s going to play the game she played in ’92 and ’98, going into the gutter to attack her Republican opponents.  Don’t play the game on her terms.  Play her game, stay on offense and force her to play defense, keep asking her why a woman with a near three-decade career in Washington prefers sliming her opponent to defending her record.  Make sure to ask Ma’am what she’s done for the Golden State–and why she would rather insult her constituents than meet with them.

Remember, Ms. Fiorina, you’re not the issue; Ma’am is.  She’s been in Washington 27 years.  In her 17 years in the Senate, things haven’t improved in the Golden State.  And people, even here in liberal California, aren’t particularly happy with the political class today.

And let me know what I can do to help.  It will be a good day for California and a better day for the United States when a woman like you replaces a mean-spirited Ma’am like Barbara Boxer.

Oh, happy day, oh happy, happy.  Where do I send my check?

Watching how much Senator Arlen Specter (Opportunist-Pennsylvania) has had to contort himself into a card-carrying left-winger in order to please his new bosses in the Democratic Party so as to better win its nomination for next fall’s general election contest.  He has flip-flopped on “card check” and now spouts the left-wing line on those speaking out against Obamacare (saying they don’t represent America) at town hall meetings across the Keystone State (even though this view flies in the face of reality).

Those who have taken the time to talk to people attending Pennsylvania town halls have found such protesters to be quite a diverse lot, mostly concerned citizens who came there on their own steam (and their own dime).

At an age when most men are content to retire from public life to devote themselves to their passions spend time with their families, Specter seems particularly desperate to stay in the Senate, as if his life’s meaning revolves around remaining in the public eye, even if the only interest he is advancing is stroking his own ego.

Given his swift shift to the far left these past few months, he seems to be saying in his desperation that he really needs this job, so what better theme song for his campaign that “I Hope I Get it” from A Chorus Line:

The primary difference is that many of these actor/dancer/singers believed in something beyond themselves.