Do the Republics not realize their talking points were so obvious?

[Skeptic Ginger]

Did you listen to Paul Ryan? Was his statement talking point campaign 30 second sound bytes or well-thought out critique (whether you agreed with it or not)?

I'm honestly not sure what the point of your post or this thread was other than to say you don't like Republicans. There's not much of an argument to debate in your thread, and honestly it seems pretty pointless.

The point of the thread was to discuss the planned talking points used incessantly the meeting.

See the opening comments from John Stewart on 02-25-10, about 12 minutes, and another show covering the same topic which I can't find now. I started the thread after Stewart's and the other show's clips emphasized how often the Republics repeated the same talking points word for word, "scrap the Bill", "slow down", "start over" and "step by step".


Salon gave Ryan high marks:

Paul Ryan, R-Wis.
The Wisconsin Republican gave what was arguably the best performance of the day, showing why Republicans hope he can be their bright new wonky star. He may not have been right on all policy aspects, but he sure sold them well, and that's what matters at events like this.
Grade: A-

Dick Durban got the only other A:

Richard Durbin, D-Ill.
Reid's deputy gave the best rebuttal to GOP arguments of any Democrat (many of whom actually would have been better off staying mute and letting Obama speak), putting tort reform in its relatively irrelevant place and reminding people that the "government takeover" involves giving citizens the same choices as members of Congress have. Which led to the best line of the day: "If you think it's a Socialist plot and it's wrong, for goodness sakes, drop out of the Federal Employees Health Benefit Program. But if you think it's good enough for your family, shouldn't our health insurance be good enough for the rest of America?"
Grade: A

Pelosi and Reid did especially poorly. I missed Pelosi's opening remarks but I'll take Salon's word for it they were not impressive.

Obama got a B+.

 

[OneShotKi11]

'I don't understand it, therefor it must be bad' is the same logic used to deny evolution. Dummies indeed.

How did this quote come about based on that comment?
Or do you always like to imply your own meaning to another persons words?

Which points would you be referring to? Maybe I can help you.

To be honest with you, off the top of my head i really cant recall. I would have to be sitting down watching two sides debate or reading about the subject. If you can link me to an unbias "Bill Summary" you have found online, i would greatly appreciate it.

Just please dont let it start off like the one i found...
"The bill builds on what works in today’s health care system and fixes the parts that are broken"

Right off the bat i feel thats only telling me the good parts.

 

[Ziggurat]

Dick Durban got the only other A:

Durbin deserves an F for that. I've been a federal employee. I was covered by the plan he talks about., and the current bills don't do anything like give those benefits to the general public. The FEHB a lavish employee-sponsored private insurance plan. It doesn't resemble what's being proposed, it resembles what employers can already offer their employees if they spend the money to do so (and some do). But there's no chance in hell we can afford to offer such plans to everyone in the US. Not. A. Chance. In. Hell. His claim that if it's good enough for Congress, it's good enough for everyone else is like saying "if your congressional salary is good enough for you, it's good enough for everyone else". That isn't a reason to pay everyone a congressional salary, and it's not an argument to extend federal employee health care plans to everyone else either. And if you tried to, I guarantee that Congress will start opting out of it, because it would turn into a disaster.

Oh, and Salon deserves an F for giving Durbin an A for that argument. It's transparently absurd, and they should know it.

 

[UnrepentantSinner]

Concerning a 2400 page law, no one will know what's in it until our Demo'rat "best & brightest" decode it for the rest of us dummies.

Alinsky - rule 12.

 

[AlBell]

Concerning a 2400 page law, no one will know what's in it until our Demo'rat "best & brightest" decode it for the rest of us dummies.

'I don't understand it, therefor it must be bad' is the same logic used to deny evolution. Dummies indeed.

You a "best & brightest" who understands it and is pleased with it?

There are numerous summaries of the Bills on the Net. Have you tried looking for 'health care bill summary' on Google?

Summary? "Pelosi/Reid/Obama are fixing the healthcare problem" doesn't work for me, thanks.

Alinsky - rule 12.

Angry others use a page from the lefty-lib Bible?

 

[novice skeptic]

The point of the thread was to discuss the planned talking points used incessantly the meeting.
.

No it wasn't. Your thread title and OP only talked about one side's use of talking points. Your thread title also assumed a fact not in evidence. You felt the GOP incessantly repeated talking points. John Stewart using the clips is no different than when Hannity or Limbaugh string together a bunch of clips of Dems all repeating the same party line. It may be evidence of what your title suggests, but at best is strategically manipulated and edited with a p.o.v. in mind.

The fact that you only brought up one side's use of talking points suggests that you didn't want to discuss the "planned talking points used incessantly in the meeting." Rather you wanted to talk about your perception that ONE side used talking points incessantly and obviously.

And again, I'll ask you if you heard Paul Ryan's statement. I can totally respect if you disagree with everything he said, but I wonder if you think his statement was superficial sound byte talking points or if you think it was legit intelligent discussion. I wasn't asking what Salon thought of him, but what you thought of him.

 

[tyr_13]

You a "best & brightest" who understands it and is pleased with it?

Non-sequiter. You complained about the length of the bill. The length or complexity of the bill does not mean it is bad. It's faulty logic and needs to be called out when used on a skeptics forum.

No, I'm not happy with the bill. It's too much of a compromise with Republicans who will never be happy with it, will always repeat the same lies about it being shoved through, and doesn't do nearly as much as it should.

That said, it still appears to be better than nothing. A poor start, but a start none the less.

Oh, and about the 'best and brightest', what is it called when the some trait of the arguer is attacked and not the substance of the argument (in this case the healthcare bills)?

 

[AlBell]

Oh, and about the 'best and brightest', what is it called when the some trait of the arguer is attacked and not the substance of the argument (in this case the healthcare bills)?

The truth? Gee. I hope so anyway.

 

[ponderingturtle]

Then your beloved Democrats are doing a piss poor job of refuting the lies and the myths.

Just like doctors who are doing a piss poor job of fighting anti vaxers.

 

[ponderingturtle]

While I agree that this is a free country and that people who are not myself should be left alone, I feel compelled to point out the irony of this message, coming as it does in defense of the right. Social conservatives, who are most closely and overwhelmingly associated with the right, consistently seek to do precisely the opposite of the sentiment you've just expressed. They want to make the country less free along a broad spectrum of behavior to better suit their own sensibilities.

Because they want money to be free not people. It is only a shame when someone has an abortion not when someone dies because they don't have insurance, the latter is just the way of the world. Well at least the American Way.

 

[ponderingturtle]

According to Mary Matalin, a Republic spokesperson, the Democrats think health care is a right and the Republics think health care is a responsibility.

I'm not sure how that translates to what a Republic would do about the folks who cannot afford health care. It would seem the Republics don't believe the working poor exist.

Just view is as social darwinism.

Of course if they honestly believed that they wouldn't be defending current medicare tooth and nail. If they believed it was a responsibility they would be for getting rid of medicare.

 

[tyr_13]

The truth? Gee. I hope so anyway.

I understand now. You have no actual points, just like to snipe with silly short attacks.

I can now safely skip over your posts and read the much better criticisms from the actual conservatives on the boards.

 

[AlBell]

I understand now. You have no actual points, just like to snipe with silly short attacks.

I can now safely skip over your posts and read the much better criticisms from the actual conservatives on the boards.

Ditto.

 

[Ziggurat]

My favorite bit (so far - I haven't watched the whole thing) from Obama was where he talks about car insurance.

He says he got mandatory insurance, got rear ended, called his insurance company, and they laughed at him because they wouldn't cover the cost of fixing his car. Either he's lying about what happened, or he's clueless and deserved the laughter he got from his insurance company. Mandatory insurance in Illinois is liability insurance. If you hit someone else, you need that insurance to pay them. If you want insurance to cover your own car, you need collision insurance, which is not mandatory. And it's not mandatory because it costs money, and the state doesn't want to force that cost on people who can't or don't want to pay for it, since it doesn't hurt anyone else if you don't have it. Obama is basically complaining that his insurance company didn't provide him coverage he didn't pay for. The insurance he bought provides only the state minimum required coverage because that's the only way to offer insurance at the lowest possible price. If he wanted more coverage, he was free to buy more coverage. If he couldn't afford more coverage, then increasing the state minimum wouldn't have helped him, it would have prevented him from getting coverage at all.

And this is the man who thinks he can fix health care?

 

[AlBell]

Obama has discovered that Community Organizer didn't prep him for organizing in the big leagues. When surrounded by people as intelligent and well-educated as he is, plus some number even more intelligent, most of whom have been playing in the big leagues for years he looks like a raw rooky.

That car insurance pap, and the bit on Govt saving us from Big Business who are all trying to kill and maim their customers. Does he really think anyone in that group, or for that matter most voters, bought it?

I hope he was as usual just talking to hear himself talk.

 

[Drysdale]

Obama asked for specifics. The Republics claimed they had some but then produced none.

Obama pointed out the talking points were not accomplishing anything. That was correct.

Obama asked people to stop griping about the things they didn't like and consider the areas where there was agreement. The Republics continued to offer nothing but complaints.

For the substance, see the Bills themselves and the discussion I assume is ongoing in the other threads. These Bills while not perfect have been completed and passed the House and Senate separately.

This meeting was not supposed to be one where the Democrats presented their ideas. It was supposed to be a meeting where the Republics presented tangible solutions to the health care system problems. The Democrats have their Bills. The Republics claimed to have their own ideas for solving the identified problems. Obama called their bluff. They had little to nothing to offer.

Just curious, where did you see this premeeting agenda?

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

No it wasn't.

Sorry to contradict you but your opinion on my motives is not based in fact. And unless you are claiming you can read minds, you have no evidence to support your claim.

I have posted repeatedly on the Republic talking points, on Frank Luntz, on the marketing and framing of the Republic political message. The whole point of calling them Republics is based on a Frank Luntz focus group which found the label, "Democrat" Party, had a more negative connotation than Democratic Party. The memo went out and the Republic talking heads went out and used the term repetitively until it became part of the vocabulary non-talking heads were also using.

The Daily Show and many others put the talking points clips on one after the other many many times, demonstrating the coordinated effort being made, clearly by design, not by coincidence to use these phrases and key words.

It might annoy you that someone points these facts out. That's your problem. But the thread is what I said is was and I started it right after hearing yet another string of coordinated talking points in a meeting that was supposed to be substantive, not just a day long campaign message.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

My favorite bit (so far - I haven't watched the whole thing) from Obama was where he talks about car insurance.

He says he got mandatory insurance, got rear ended, called his insurance company, and they laughed at him because they wouldn't cover the cost of fixing his car. Either he's lying about what happened, or he's clueless and deserved the laughter he got from his insurance company. Mandatory insurance in Illinois is liability insurance. If you hit someone else, you need that insurance to pay them. If you want insurance to cover your own car, you need collision insurance, which is not mandatory. And it's not mandatory because it costs money, and the state doesn't want to force that cost on people who can't or don't want to pay for it, since it doesn't hurt anyone else if you don't have it. Obama is basically complaining that his insurance company didn't provide him coverage he didn't pay for. The insurance he bought provides only the state minimum required coverage because that's the only way to offer insurance at the lowest possible price. If he wanted more coverage, he was free to buy more coverage. If he couldn't afford more coverage, then increasing the state minimum wouldn't have helped him, it would have prevented him from getting coverage at all.

And this is the man who thinks he can fix health care?

I don't think you got the point of that comment by Obama. He was pointing out that mandatory insurance was not a novel idea.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Just curious, where did you see this premeeting agenda?

You mean the talking points memos?

They've been exposed a number of times during Bush campaigns and the Bush years. People leaked the memos. And a whistle blower on Fox News disclosed morning meetings when the editorial talking points of the day are discussed. Newscasters then repeat the phrases throughout the day.

Frank Luntz's work is also common knowledge.

Then of course there's the outcome, you hear the same phrases used incessantly. Like I said above, a lot of people put the clips side by side revealing the same message word for word being repeated as often and it can be fit into a discussion. Do you think these folks all decide on their own to use the same phrases on the same days over and over? Of course it's coordinated.

 

[leftysergeant]

My favorite bit (so far - I haven't watched the whole thing) from Obama was where he talks about car insurance.

You missed the joke, didn't you?

His point, of course, was that just caling something "health care insurance " does not mean that it will get you treated for a major illness, and that is the kind of "insurance reform" that the GOPers are trying to sell us.