I wish my Congressman was as cool as Alan Grayson |

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9 Responses to “

I like this man’s style

”

4:30 pm, 29 March, 2010 р.
nahummer says:

Alan Grayson is one cool customer. Who knew? As for Lydia I’d like to know where she learned to say INsurance, her voice is driving me to drink even more.
6:03 pm, 29 March, 2010 р.
cft says:

AMAZING! Yes! This guy’s great! This is exactly what all politicians should be like. Could you imagine what a great country this would be if all congressmen and senators were as candid and un-blustery as he is?

@nahummer: You know what, I’m willing to give Lydia a pass for pronouncing “insurance” that way, because that’s how lots of people from the South seem to pronounce it. I also agree with Grayson that she deserves a basic level of respect for having bothered to put some effort into learning about the issue, despite offering some incredibly unconvincing arguments and tendentious hypotheticals.

I mean, she’s definitely wrong—and the combination of ways in which she’s wrong suggests an unreflective fidelity to some cache of one-size-fits-all Republican talking-points. But nevertheless, if the tea-bagger rank and file were mostly like Lydia, as opposed to a bunch of racist, neo-secessionist thugs, it would be possible to have actual debates with them, which is a much better way of doing politics than the meaningless slogans and slander than currently prevail.

I think that this bit is at the heart of why Grayson’s arguments—not to mention his refreshingly easy-going style—take all the wind out of Lydia’s sails:

Lydia: “I do feel bad for people who die, but it’s not necessarily because they’re uninsured; because everyone still has access to care, by going to the emergency room or what have you, but—”

Grayson: “Not if you have cancer. They’re not going to give you chemotherapy in the emergency room.”

Lydia: “Is there any concern that with the way they’re putting in this sort of overarching insurance plan through the exchanges or what have you, that’s regulated by HHS and [inaudible] that we’re kind of stifling innovation in the market?”

To which Grayson is correct to respond by enumerating some of the enormous number of industry-wide abuses, price gouging, etc. But, as much as I love this guy, I wish he would have gone a step further.

I wish he would have said:

“First of all, what is it that is making you assume that markets—simply as a function of the fact that they’re considered ‘markets’—are automatically engines of innovation? Who actually believes this? The insurance industry is and has only ever been a racket: a regime of privileges and kick-backs brokered behind closed doors. What little ‘market activity’ that can be said to exist in this industry consists of buyouts, mergers, vertical consolidation, price fixing and the like. If you think that the absence of public regulation/coordination of this ‘market’ somehow functions to encourage ‘innovations’ or any kind, you are kidding yourself, lady. You’ve been sold the biggest pack of lies that greedy, self-centered money-grubbing maggots have ever cooked up, and if you believe that—particularly after witnessing Wall Street’s effortless fleecing of the American taxpayer—you will believe anything.”

Perhaps my favorite of Lydia’s gasping attempts to save face after being handily (and graciously) sat down by Grayson:

Lydia: “You want us to become subservient to the state?”

Because, this is the fundamental source of anxiety among rightists and their foot-soldiers. Until they wake up to the interplay among constellations of political and economic power, it will always be easy for the neoconservative/neoliberal Right to use them as pawns in their game.

That raises the question of: in whose game are the rest of us pawns? Someone’s, but there’s no avoiding that, unfortunately. The trick is to stay as ahead of the curve as possible. Despite her basic intelligence and argumentative spirit, Lydia’s way behind the curve. She sounds like somebody from the Young Republicans Club, ca. 1985.
6:33 am, 30 March, 2010 р.
Carl says:

” give your name to my staff” why? he wants to have sex with her like the rest of the nasty bastards on the hill do ” over three millions impressions” only someone that is geared toward marketing knows this. What a waste of fresh air this guy is!
6:36 am, 30 March, 2010 р.
Carl says:

And we can say insurance anyway we like, just because it’s not the way you pronounce it…makes it wrong? South my ass it’s the shit from up north that’s making all the trouble for the country!
8:07 am, 30 March, 2010 р.
ZIRGAR says:

He won’t last long. He’s not tactful and he’ll piss off the wrong entrenched politician and get his balls handed to him and sent packing, provided he gets elected to another term. The good ones never last in DC; that’s the Catch-22 of it all.
9:56 am, 30 March, 2010 р.
Phuck Politics says:

@nahummer – I can’t make fun of Lydia for pronouncing insurance INsurance. It’s a Southern thing. Some people say it’s a blessing. I say it’s a goddamn curse.

@cft – The only thing I don’t like about him is he’s a starch supporter of Israel’s expanion.

@Carl – South my ass it’s the shit from up north that’s making all the trouble for the country!

No, the South has fucked up this country more than the North ever will.

@Zirgar – Yeah, you know your fucked as a politician when Sarah Palin is campaigning against you.
10:43 am, 30 March, 2010 р.
cft says:

@PhP —
@cft – The only thing I don’t like about him is he’s a starch supporter of Israel’s expanion.

Didn’t know that. I guess nobody gets everything right, but for a politician, he comes remarkably close. I mean, his way of defending his arguments is commendable in and of itself; if I disagreed with what he was saying in this exchange, I would still respect him.

After all, and @Carl, the quality of a politician’s mind and his capacity to communicate coherently are among the few significant measures of whether or not he is a “waste of fresh air.” Much more reliable, you’ll find, than the application to all topics of mouth-breathing, neo-McCarthyite insinuations and inbred Confederate nostalgia.

@Carl —
South my ass it’s the shit from up north that’s making all the trouble for the country!

Heh. Keep right on saying it. That’s exactly what many of us are counting on you to continue saying. If you don’t think the traditional suburban/upper-middle-class Republican base is getting increasingly freaked out by all of the paramilitary/white trash goons (not all of whom are technically in the South, but don’t count on the Northern bourgeoisie to make such subtle distinctions), you’ve got a nasty surprise coming your way.

Welcome to the new wedge politics.
5:13 pm, 30 March, 2010 р.
nahummer says:

Yeah, sorry, my fault, low blow on the pronunciation thing… I was just trying to stir up trouble… and look at that, it worked! I’ve heard far worse stress placement on words in my day, but I’m still amazed by how quickly civilized debate can turn into name calling. Grayson seems to be a pretty good balance of the two, minus the Israel support that is. Too bad they don’t make more like him, maybe we’d have a chance to work things out before they go from bad to worse.
5:12 am, 31 March, 2010 р.
Carl says:

We are in the “Worse” I would like o just get back to “the bad” We’re presently in what you call a “goat fuck”!