Arizona Daily Star publishes revisionist history, shills for GOP

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

I have been a resident of Tucson since the early 1960's. I have started each morning, for good or ill, by reading the Arizona Daily Star.

At one time, the Arizona Daily Star was an award winning newspaper with reporters and editors that demonstrated excellence in journalism. That newspaper has not existed for some time now.

There has been a precipitous decline in the quality of reporting and the opinion pages since Lee Enterprises purchased the newspaper. While the Arizona Daily Star still has a few good reporters and on occasion demonstrates flashes of its former self, on most days it appears to be in a race to the bottom to compete with the likes of Rupert Murdoch's yellow rag New York Post.

Thursday's edition is a good example. On the front page of the Arizona Daily Star appeared this AP report by Laurie Kellman Bipartisanship loses its champion (the headline was re-captioned by the Arizona Daily Star. The original headline was Kennedy's absence leaves Senate void of dealmaker – not synonymous with "bipartisanship" by any stretch of the imagination, copy editor).

To paraphrase Rachel Maddow, "If you were to read some of the news today, you would find that the late Senator Edward Kennedy was known for being a centrist, a compromiser — actually, a fairly conservative guy for a Democrat. That and other shameless jaw-dropping historical revisionism" in the Arizona Daily Star today.

Ms. Kellman takes the lame GOP excuse of the day for their opposition to any health care reforms – that the "stalemate" is the result of Kennedy's absence for the past few, crucial months – and spins for the likes of Senators Judd Gregg (R-NH), Orrin Hatch (R-UT) and the lamest of the lame, John McCain (R-AZ), who are singing the praises of Ted Kennedy's bipartisanship and lamenting the loss of his leadership – two qualities sorely lacking in each of these senators.

Entirely missing from this AP report is any semblance of the truth.

Ted Kennedy was the "liberal lion of the Senate," and unabashedly proud of of being a liberal. No one ever mistook Ted Kennedy for a "centrist."

The misuse and abuse of the word "centrist" by the establishment media is approaching criminal negligence. The media uses "centrist" to describe moderate to conservative Democrats. This is the way in which the establishment media maintains the myth that this is a "conservative" country.

In issue poll after issue poll, for years, Americans have identified with the progressive to "left" position on almost every issue, with few exceptions. The fulcrum on the balance scale of political views in this country rests not right of center, but left of center, and has for some time. In 2008, Barack Obama and the Democrats won the largest Democratic landslide election since Lyndon Johnson in 1964.

It has been suggested that the Republican's revisionist history to rebrand Ted Kennedy as a "centrist" is an attempt not to bestow any honor on a liberal. Remember the Republican's deification of Ronald Reagan at his funeral? There cannot be anyone of equal or greater stature to their deity. Especially "liberal'" Ted Kennedy, whom the conservative media and the GOP have vilified as Satan himself for decades.

The "bipartisan" landmark legislation Ted Kennedy forged over the years was not the result of "making the right concessions, which really are the essence of successful negotiations," as lame-o McCain said on ABC's "This Week." Kennedy forged those bipartisan coalitions on the power of his personality, his unmatched skills as a legislator, and his convictions in the righteousness of his cause. Kennedy did not trade away any core liberal principles to achieve landmark legislation in civil rights, education and health care. He was able to convince his Republican colleagues in the Senate in the justness of his cause, that it was the morally correct thing to do.

Sen. McCain is lying when he says that If Kennedy had been engaged in the debate this past June, when he handed his committee chairmanship duties to Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.), "I think the health-care reform might be in a very different place today."

Sen. McCain serves on Sen. Kennedy's Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee. The three House committees having jurisdiction have passed America's Affordable Health Care Act (H.R. 3200), and Sen. Kennedy's HELP Committee approved the Senate version of the bill (the Kennedy-Dodd or "HELP" bill) on July 15. The bill included more than 160 Republican amendments accepted during the month-long mark-up, one of the longest in Congressional history. http://help.senate.gov/Maj_press/2009_07_15_b.pdf Yet every Republican on the committee voted against it — including the very same Senators Judd Gregg (R-NH), Orrin Hatch (R-UT) and lame-o John McCain (R-AZ).

So, despite their public statements now that they would have worked with Senator Kennedy on a bipartisan health care reform bill, and did in fact succeed in obtaining over 160 amendments in markup to the Kennedy-Dodd bill, these pathetic losers already voted against the "Kennedy-Dodd" bill on July 15 – a critical detail not included in Ms. Kellman's AP report in the Arizona Daily Star.

As Rachel Maddow correctly noted in this segment 'The Rachel Maddow Show' for Thursday, August 27:

MADDOW: In other words, if only Ted Kennedy were still here. If only he had a health care bill, those Republicans say they‘d vote for that.

You know, Ted Kennedy did have a health care bill. Senator Kennedy was chair of the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, which approved a health care reform package in July. It‘s called the Kennedy bill. Senator Kennedy helped write that bill. Senators Hatch and McCain and Gregg all voted against it.

But the revisionist history goes deeper. They aren‘t just saying they would have voted for a Kennedy health care bill, even though they had the chance and they didn‘t. They‘re saying they would have voted for a Kennedy health care bill because Ted Kennedy would have compromised with them, because Ted Kennedy was all about making concessions to Republicans.

* * *

Apparently in the history of Ted Kennedy‘s life and work, as imagined by the GOP today, Senator Kennedy was the great compromiser, ready to water down health care reform in order to bring Republicans onboard.

Of course, in the actual history of Ted Kennedy‘s life and work, he always said that — and I say this without a hint of shyness — he was a doctrinaire liberal who spent the last four decades fighting to get health coverage for every American.

The truth is that on the issue of health care reforms, Senators Judd Gregg, Orrin Hatch and John McCain have never worked in a bipartisan manner with Ted Kennedy. Not in 1993-94 with the Clinton health care reform bill, and not now with the Obama health care reforms.

Lawrence O'Donnell explained this to Keith Olbermann in this segment 'Countdown with Keith Olbermann' for Thursday, August 27:

Point of fact, the Senate Health Committee voted on its health care reform package in July, the package included 160 Republican amendments, 160 of them. But no Republicans on that committee, including McCain, voted for the bill.

So when Mr. McCain says no amendments were agreed to of any significance, his must be the thinking of kind that significant amendments that would effectively gut the bill of any real meaning since he is, for example, clearly against the public option which, echoing the non-sequitur talking points of Mr. Grassley of Iowa, Senator McCain has said, quote, “would deprive people of choice.”

O‘DONNELL: Well, there is a history here that we went through this before, in 1993 and 1994, and Senator McCain did not negotiate with Senator Kennedy on health care at any point.  And the same thing with Orrin Hatch who‘s making similar sounds these days.  Orrin Hatch is a member of the Kennedy committee both during the Clinton crusade in ‘94 and today, and neither one of them have ever seriously negotiated with Chairman Kennedy on any of these things.

Now, they‘ve certainly done business on other subjects. That‘s true. But absolutely never on health care reform, never.

And Senator Kennedy, by the way, is not an easy compromiser on health care reform. In 1994, I was in the room when he told the president that he believed the strategy should be a Democrats-only strategy and that we should not be trying to reach out and get Republican votes.

OLBERMANN: And the actions of Republicans thus far in this debate also suggests mirroring that perfectly, that whatever Senator Kennedy might have been willing to compromise on — if there was indeed anything in this bill he would have been — it would never have been enough for those whose purpose is to dilute the bill beyond recognition or having any affect?

O‘DONNELL: Absolutely. I mean, the McCain position is essentially sure, if we got amendments in there to remove all the things that Ted Kennedy wanted, then we would have voted for the final product. I mean, that‘s really what this is about.

No Republican on that committee has ever voted for a Ted Kennedy health care reform bill. None of them voted for it this time. They did get amendments accepted, not — those amendments weren‘t enough to make any of them vote for it.

As for a "stalemate," four of the five committees having jurisdiction have already approved a version of the bill. Only the Senate Finance Committee, or more accurately a sub-set, the bipartisan "Baucus Caucus," has yet to act. The Clinton health care bill never even came to a vote in 1994. This is as far as health care reform has made it through Congress since the GOP corporate welfare for pharmaceutical companies, Medicare Part D, under President George W. Bush (not to be confused with health care reform).

There are discussions underway to abandon the Baucus Caucus and to proceed with a Democrats-only bill in the Senate using the reconciliation process that Republicans used to great effect to enact the agenda of President George W. Bush (of course, now they are squealing like pigs that it is "wrong for Democrats" to use this same reconciliation process). Medicare cleared the Senate on a procedural vote with only 51 Democratic votes in 1965. It is now the most popular and successful government run health care program. History is on our side.

The Arizona Daily Star followed up this GOP revisionist history nonsense on its front page by shilling the GOP talking points on its opinion page with this editorial Shred the bills on health care; let's start over The editor responsible for this truly remarkable piece of crap did not sign his or her name to it. If you want to claim credit for it, leave your name in the comments.

This idiot editor suggests we should "start talking about principles rather than processes." Principles are for campaigns. The American people decided by a landslide vote last November that they wanted Barack Obama's principles for health care reform that he campaigned on for two years. Congress is well into drafting the specifics of legislation. "Starting over" is not even serious.

This idiot editor suggests that the bill should adopt the AARP's eight principles to achieve health-care reform — "changes that may or may not be in the bazillion pieces and pages of legislation floating around Capitol Hill." Clearly, this idiot editor has not bothered to read any of the bills and knows nothing of what he or she speaks. The bills moving through Congress already reflect the AARP's eight principles in specific legislation, which are remarkably similar to the guiding principles of the White House.

This idiot editor suggests that what Congress needs is input "from constituents providing guidance on the goals of reform." Has this editor never heard of committee hearings and public comment? Millions of Americans have contacted their representatives by phone, letter and e-mail. Does this editor believe the legislative process occurs in a vacuum? What do you think Congress is doing by holding health care town halls? (at which a small but vocal minority have been trying to "shout down and shut down" any public discussion of health care reform.)

This idiot editor uses the uncivil behavior of this small but vocal minority as an excuse to shill for the GOP talking point that "Congress needs to take a breather and ask for a 'do-over.'"

"Bipartisanship" to the Republican leadership simply means no health care reform – they want to maintain the status quo just the way it is, thank you very much. Republicans have offered no substantive health care reforms of their own (as noted above, they made 160 technical amendments to the HELP bill, then voted against it anyway). Their objective has been to "just say no" to whatever bill the Democrats propose. The Republicans are not interested in reforming health care, they only seek partisan political advantage, and have demonstrated an extraordinary willingness to say and do anything to defeat any health care reforms. There is no room for negotiation to achieve "consensus" when one party has adopted a scorched earth policy to defeat a bill.

So explain to me, idiot editor, how you expect Congress to achieve a bipartisan consensus (which is only a preferred means, not an end and justification in itself) when Sen. Jon Kyl has made it abundantly clear that no amount of appeasement from Democrats on health care reform will satisfy Republicans. Politico reported in mid-August Kyl: Concessions won't win over GOP:

The Senate Republican whip, speaking to reporters on a conference call from his home state of Arizona, said that even if the Democrats do away with a government-run insurance option, the GOP most likely won't support the bill that's being written in the Senate.

"I think it’s safe to say that there are a huge number of big issues that people have," Kyl said, referring to Republican senators. "There is no way that Republicans are going to support a trillion-dollar-plus bill."

* * *

Kyl said that a revenue-neutral bill probably won't get much GOP support either.

"I have no doubt that they can make it revenue neutral to find enough ways to tax the American people, but that doesn’t mean the Republicans will support it," Kyl said.

On the nonprofit insurance cooperatives that Sen. Kent Conrad and other centrist Democrats are proposing as an alternative to a public plan, Kyl said it was a "Trojan horse."

"It’s a step towards government-run health care in this country," Kyl said.

And from crooksandliars.com Sen. Kyl: Negotiations Difficult Because of 'Liberals,' Republicans Won't Support Current Bills:

Via Media Matters:

In an interview with Fox News' Neil Cavuto, Sen. Jon Kyl (R-AZ) made it clear, again, that current proposals for health insurance reform will not receive any Republican support. "For either the bill that passed the House Committee or the bill that passed the HELP committee in the Senate, I don't think a single Republican in the Senate would support either of those bills,"he declared. Kyl went on to say that the three Republicans engaged in talks with Democrats, led by increasingly erratic Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA), are finding negotiations "very difficult" because of the "liberals in both the House and the Senate."

Kyl's comments come just two days after he told reporters that "almost all Republicans" will oppose reform, even if Democrats make significant concessions — remarks that Steve Benen called "the death knell of bipartisan negotiations."

I apologize for the length of this post but I am so goddamn tired of the shitty reporting published in the Arizona Daily Star. The editors are doing a great disservice to its readers by failing to inform the public with biased and factually inaccurate and incomplete reporting.