ThreeSources Spin Meter Spin Meter
Gotta love the AP! There's a 2,000+ page healthcare bill out, it "reduces the deficit" by applying 10 years of revenue to six years of expenses, and by claiming Medicare reductions that no sentient being expects will not be rescinded by this or a future Congress.
Thankfully, the Associated Press has pulled a few resources off the Sarah Palin book to expose the disingenuousness of -- wait for it -- the GOP opposition:
WASHINGTON -- Republicans love to get their hands on the Democrats' health care legislation. They show it to the cameras at every opportunity, even piling one version on top of another to make a big pile look even bigger.
Although they complain they don't have time to read all of it, they found the time to tape it together, page by page, so they could roll it up the steps of the Capitol like super-sized toilet paper and show how very long it is.
It surely is long. But, no, not longer than "War and Peace," as they claim.
Those wacky Republicans! What stunt will they dare try next?
Media and Blogging
Posted by John Kranz at November 24, 2009 10:06 AM
This is perhaps the biggest pile of cow excrement I've ever read from the AP. Calvin Woodward evidently can be a little critical of Democrats to show "balance," but he's showing his true colors. Besides, he must ensure he won't be sent off to a future re-education gulag.
This deserves an Eidelbus fisking:
WASHINGTON – Republicans love to get their hands on the Democrats' health care legislation. They show it to the cameras at every opportunity, even piling one version on top of another to make a big pile look even bigger.
If you didn't see the AP logo, you'd think you were reading the Huffington Post, Think Progress or Talking Points Memo. Sheesh.
Although they complain they don't have time to read all of it, they found the time to tape it together, page by page, so they could roll it up the steps of the Capitol like super-sized toilet paper and show how very long it is.
Gee, how professionally written, and how absurd. Which takes more time and effort, to heft a single tome or to read through its thousands of pages?
It surely is long. But, no, not longer than "War and Peace," as they claim.
No one really expects brevity when reinventing something as complex and huge as the nation's health insurance system, which accounts for one-sixth of the economy. Indeed, legislation of comparable size was used to redefine an area of much more limited federal responsibility, education. That was the No Child Left Behind Act from the agenda of Republican President George W. Bush.
See, see, that evil McChimpyBooshHitler did it, so it's ok for Democrats to do it even bigger!
Size only matters in the health care debate because Republicans have turned the length of the legislation into a symbol: Big, unwieldy bill means big, overreaching government. Even bigger when you display double-spaced copies with double-wide margins and large print.
So if Republicans didn't oppose it, it didn't matter that it's a big bill by big, overreaching government to control a sixth of our economy.
As if he risked a hernia carrying it any other way, Republican Rep. Steve King of Iowa was seen hoisting such a copy of the House Democratic bill on his shoulder, the package trussed in a sturdy rope. GOP Rep. John Culberson of Texas brought a copy to a Capitol Hill rally and threw its loose pages to the crowd, like meat to lions.
See what I wrote above about the comparison to HuffPo et al.
During the weekend vote to bring the Senate health bill to full debate, five Republican senators displayed the massive legislation on their desks and one of them, Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, piled the House and Senate bills together to represent a nightmarishly bureaucratic double-whammy.
So more irrelevancy, when the point is that it's absurd for the two halves of Congress to come up with such monstrosities.
The actual bill, which Senate Majority Leader Harry introduced last week, came in at 2,074 double-spaced pages, 84 more pages than the House version, which was already being ridiculed for its size.
"That's larger than the novel 'War and Peace,'" Republican Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah said of the Senate bill.
"Exceeding even 'War and Peace' in length," Rep. Roy Blunt, R-Mo., said of the House bill.
Said Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas: "'War and Peace' — some people consider it the greatest book ever written, but most people recognize the novel because at 1,284 pages its length is often the butt of jokes. Now imagine trying to read something that long overnight."
Mainstream media apologism in three, two, one...
Actually, Leo Tolstoy's tome is longer than either bill. Full translated versions are nearly twice as long.
The bill passed by the House is 319,145 words. The Senate bill is 318,512 words, shorter than the House version despite consuming more paper. Various versions of Tolstoy's novel are 560,000 to 670,000 words. Bush's education act tallied more than 280,000 words.Oh, that should make us feel so much better. Counting words, the two versions are "only" 57% as long as "War and Peace"...so let's see which members of Congress read 57% of the book overnight. Or in five days? That's how long Obama said he'll make a bill available for public view before he signs it, a promise he has routinely broken.
Another point of comparision: the bills, again counting words, are 40% as long as the King James Bible. No doubt, the very middle of each commendeth us to say, "Bless the Lord Obama, o my soul, and all that is prosperous within me, may he take away."
By now, the full draft of Reid's bill that had circulated in the corridors and landed so prominently on Republican desks has been published in the Congressional Record in the official and conventional manner.
The type is small and tight. No hernias will be caused by moving this rendering of the bill around. Unfurling it on the Capitol steps would not be much of a spectacle.
"The type is small and tight." Yes, and you can laser-etch the Declaration of Independence on the head of a pin. I routinely fiddle with font size and margins so that a memo can fit on a single page, so when it comes to Reid's feat, so f******** what?
Think about it: a single-spaced typed page is roughly 500 words, so if you somehow put the absurd quantity of 1000 words on each page, you'd still need well over 300 pages for either version. That's over 150 double-sided pages of fine print.
This is perhaps the biggest pile of cow excrement I've ever read from the AP. Calvin Woodward evidently can be a little critical of Democrats to show "balance," but he's showing his true colors. Besides, he must ensure he won't be sent off to a future re-education gulag.
This deserves an Eidelbus fisking:
If you didn't see the AP logo, you'd think you were reading the Huffington Post, Think Progress or Talking Points Memo. Sheesh.Gee, how professionally written, and how absurd. Which takes more time and effort, to heft a single tome or to read through its thousands of pages?
See, see, that evil McChimpyBooshHitler did it, so it's ok for Democrats to do it even bigger!
So if Republicans didn't oppose it, it didn't matter that it's a big bill by big, overreaching government to control a sixth of our economy.
See what I wrote above about the comparison to HuffPo et al.
So more irrelevancy, when the point is that it's absurd for the two halves of Congress to come up with such monstrosities.
Mainstream media apologism in three, two, one...
The bill passed by the House is 319,145 words. The Senate bill is 318,512 words, shorter than the House version despite consuming more paper. Various versions of Tolstoy's novel are 560,000 to 670,000 words. Bush's education act tallied more than 280,000 words.Oh, that should make us feel so much better. Counting words, the two versions are "only" 57% as long as "War and Peace"...so let's see which members of Congress read 57% of the book overnight. Or in five days? That's how long Obama said he'll make a bill available for public view before he signs it, a promise he has routinely broken.
Another point of comparision: the bills, again counting words, are 40% as long as the King James Bible. No doubt, the very middle of each commendeth us to say, "Bless the Lord Obama, o my soul, and all that is prosperous within me, may he take away."
"The type is small and tight." Yes, and you can laser-etch the Declaration of Independence on the head of a pin. I routinely fiddle with font size and margins so that a memo can fit on a single page, so when it comes to Reid's feat, so f******** what?Think about it: a single-spaced typed page is roughly 500 words, so if you somehow put the absurd quantity of 1000 words on each page, you'd still need well over 300 pages for either version. That's over 150 double-sided pages of fine print.
Posted by: Perry Eidelbus at November 24, 2009 12:00 PMFor Obama commendeth his love toward us in that, while we are yet greedy capitalists or the uninsured and oppressed, we can die for him.
Posted by: Perry Eidelbus at November 24, 2009 12:03 PM | What do you think? [2]