Two Minutes Hate

The right wingnuts are indulging in their ritual two minutes hate over last weekend's Democratic response to the President's weekly radio address, which was given over to a 12-year old victim of a tragic auto accident, that also left his sister with severe disabilities, to respond to President Bush's veto of the S-CHIP bill. Apparently, disagreeing with Big Brother Dear Leader is enough to send some people over the edge, including cheerleaders Rush "Pills" Limbaugh and Michele Malkin.

The Baltimore Sun has some of the gory details (emphasis mine):

But while the Frosts were helping a bipartisan majority in Congress sell a plan to expand the program, they were not prepared for comments such as this one, posted over the weekend on the conservative Web site Redstate:

"If federal funds were required [they] could die for all I care. Let the parents get second jobs, let their state foot the bill or let them seek help from private charities. ... I would hire a team of PIs and find out exactly how much their parents made and where they spent every nickel. Then I'd do everything possible to destroy their lives with that info."

So has begun the education of the Frosts, the young family of six who volunteered to advocate for the program for moderate-income families - the expansion has been approved by Congress but vetoed by President Bush - and now find themselves the focus of a nasty national debate.

The onslaught began over the weekend, a week after 12-year-old Graeme Frost delivered the Democrats' weekly radio address with a plea to Bush to sign the bill. A contributor to the conservative Web site Free Republic noted Graeme's enrollment in the private Park School and the sale of a smaller rowhouse on the Frosts' block for $485,000 this year and questioned whether the family should be taking advantage of the state program.

That post was picked up by the National Review Online and other Web sites. By Monday, Rush Limbaugh was discussing the family's earnings and assets on the air, and the blogger Michelle Malkin was writing about her visit to Halsey Frost's East Baltimore warehouse and her drive past the family's Butchers Hill rowhouse. Liberal bloggers, meanwhile, were complaining that the Frosts were being "swift-boated."

"It's really frustrating," said Bonnie Frost, 41, who stated she is upset by the angry Internet posts, e-mails and telephone calls targeting the family. "The whole point of it for me was that this program helped my family, and I wanted it to help others. That's the message, and I can't believe the way the spotlight has been taken off of that."

"It's a distractive technique," said Halsey Frost, also 41. Speaking from their cluttered front room yesterday, the Frosts said they would continue to advocate for government-funded health care.

They can't argue the merits of the legislation, so they resort to personal attacks. The fact of the matter is that it is Bush who seems to be living in some altered universe. S-CHIP is a BI-PARTISAN bill sponsored by ultra-conservatives such as Sen. Orrin Hatch and Sen. Chuck Grassley that has broad support from both sides of the aisle, especially with Governors who have to live the harsh realities of the fact that many hard working people simply cannot afford health insurance.

I'll leave it to Google for you to find the more sickening aspects of how the right wingnuts are treating this family. Believe me, it gets much worse.