Wednesday, September 09, 2009

Swiftboating health care reform

Tonight President Obama will make what some are calling his "make or break speech" for health care reform.

As much noise and confusion we've been subjected to by the rabid corporate foes of reform over the last several months, I'm sure it will pale in comparison to the hysterical response we're going to see from the extremely vocal minority of corporate conservatives in the next few days.

Groups like "CPR" (aka Conservatives for Patients' Rights) have been keeping busy employing the very same tactics used by the Swiftboaters from the 2004 presidential election. And it's no wonder, when CPR is closely associated with the very same conservative backers who funded the Swiftboat Veterans for Truth, the organization who quite successfully besmirched Sen. John Kerry's honorable war record with saturation ads and rampant mistruths.

The swiftboat techniques being used in the health care reform debate are comprised of the same two tenants of the anti-Kerry ads:
1. Advocating for an unpopular status quo.
2. Lying.
So it'll come as no surprise when the anti-reform hysteria is further fanned by a bombardment of TV ads, talk radio smear campaigns, and Fox News cheerleading. It's gonna get ugly out there.

Here's a noxious little example of the corporate anti-reform groups' agenda. See if you can count all the baseless assumptions and lies of omission:

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

You realize the term "Swiftboat" refers to the act of exposing the truth about someone or some act don't you? Kerry was a fraud and he was exposed as the liar he was...and paid the price, good for us.