Re: Edward Fitzpatrick Versus Scott MacKay

Having not had cause to develop much of a sense of Scott MacKay — beyond noting his chumminess with Matt Jerzyk, who introduced us at the most recent Ocean State Follies performance — I have to say that I’m astonished at how shallow a well of insight is indicated by the quotation that Andrew posted earlier:

The meetings with members of the state’s Washington delegation were magnets for a grab-bag of unfocused rage, much of it aimed at issues far afield from health-care. There were folks protesting abortion, illegal immigration, the banking and auto company bailouts, socialism, President Obama and even the end of the gold standard.

“Far afield from health-care”? Abortion — a [monstrous] medical procedure — is far afield from healthcare? The question of whether illegal immigrants will have access to free health insurance is far afield from healthcare? Whether a government that has already rewritten the rules guiding other large sections of our economy should add the medical industry to the list is far afield from healthcare? The observation that injecting government into the middle of every citizen’s health, well-being, life reeks of socialism is far afield from healthcare? Should the president ostensibly guiding the nation not be brought up in these discussions? Amazing.
The only partially redeeming possibility is that MacKay was making a sly statement that the government itself should remain far afield from healthcare, but somehow I doubt that that’s the case.

0 0 votes
Article Rating
Subscribe
Notify of
guest
9 Comments
Oldest
Newest Most Voted
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
Tim
Tim
14 years ago

McKay is a lifelong liberal Democrat and shill for the donkey party here in RI. It’s interesting how upset these Demmies get when confronted by the public. (If they whine about this can you imagine how they would have handled personal attacks like those leveled at Gov. Carcieri over the past 7 years by the Friends Of Scotty McKay?? Ouch!!)
It’s been quite amusing and highly entertaining to watch these town meetings and the Dems squealing reaction to them.
Why is the (ahem) “party of the people” so inept at dealing with them??
WE know why …. and the beauty here is many many millions of Americans are finally starting to see the light.

rhody
rhody
14 years ago

Time for somebody to roll out the old “Don’t Blame Me – I Voted for Chafee” bumper sticker.
Or the Avedesian version for Warwick.

Phil
Phil
14 years ago

The anger we have witnessed of late is the result of those who fear that their hold on the country is slipping. What should upset them was the disastrous way the country had been led before the current administration took over, but they are not going to hear that on Fox News. Where were the tea party assholes when Bush and Cheney were running amok. I fear that a lot of this unfocused anger is not so much a fear of socialism but a fear of a black man in charge.

Justin Katz
14 years ago

Oh, bull. What an intellectually lazy response. The great masses of people don’t care about their hold on the government; they care about their hold on their lives. The Bush administration was farther left, in that respect, than ought to have been the case, but the Obama administration is exponentially more of a threat to the average American’s freedom and well-being.

Andrew
Editor
14 years ago

Yeah Phil, because if John Edwards or John Kerry or Howard Dean were President and trying to push through the same program President Obama is, the people who have been voicing opposition to his policies would be out there saying “we love the idea of socialized medicine” instead.
Are you going to say that Fouad Ajami is driven by “fear of a black man in charge” too…

Thus the moment of crisis would become an opportunity to push through a political economy of redistribution and a foreign policy of American penance. The independent voters were the first to break ranks. They hadn’t underwritten this fundamental change in the American polity when they cast their votes for Mr. Obama.

American democracy has never been democracy by plebiscite, a process by which a leader is anointed, then the populace steps out of the way, and the anointed one puts his political program in place. In the American tradition, the “mandate of heaven” is gained and lost every day and people talk back to their leaders. They are not held in thrall by them. The leaders are not infallible or a breed apart. That way is the Third World way, the way it plays out in Arab and Latin American politics.

Tom W
Tom W
14 years ago

“Phil” conveniently forgets that not that many years ago many Republicans were hoping that Colin Powell and/or Condi Rice would run.
He also conveniently forgets that there was widespread opposition to HillaryCare, the prior Democrat Socialist Party’s attempt to nationalize healthcare.
Oh, but wait, Bill Clinton was declared our “first Black President” wasn’t he? So either the opposition to HillaryCare was also a pretext for racism or we’ve already “been there and done that” with “fear of a black man in charge” eh “Phil”?

bobc
bobc
14 years ago

phil,
Shove the racial accusations up your ass. Sideways!

Phil
Phil
14 years ago

Justin
You have used the word government in place of the word I used..country. Revealing.
Andrew
Fouad Ajami’s reasonable critism is not the same as the anger of those that attended Sarah Palin rallies and now town hall meetings on healthcare.
Tom W
I never mentioned Republicans. The fact that you think you need to defend them is interesting.
bobc
thank you no.

clawback
clawback
14 years ago

Back in November, cynical people I know were saying that criticism of Obama would result in charges of racism (at least from some quarters). I understood the sentiment behind that, but I never thought I’d actually see it. Boy have I been surprised!
But the idea that the tea-party people weren’t worried about Bush’s spending and Bush’s BAILOUTS is ludicrous. But Obama has taken crazy spending to a whole, new level. And you have to understand, too, that people are still angry about the October bailouts and the “Stimulus” bill. People were massively against both, but Congress refused to listen. Now, they’re refusing to listen on health care, too. As that Hedrick guy pointed out, the health care debate is just “the straw that broke the camel’s back.” Plus, the town halls have given people a chance to voice their opinion in ways they couldn’t when their (so-called) representatives were still in D.C.
This obviously isn’t about Obama or even just about Democrats. Check out the treatment Bob Inglis of (R-SC) got the other night. His constituents now refer to him as Bob “Clueless”. The pitchforks are out ladies and gentlemen and it’s not just about D’s and R’s, either.

Show your support for Anchor Rising with a 25-cent-per-day subscription.