The Crowbar

You know when the Democrats say “public option” they really mean “Trojan horse.”

Of course, the Chorus of Misery over at the DailyKos would very much like to get this horse inside America’s city gates to usher in an army of Universal Death Care zombies who wait patiently in long lines to feed upon the brains of the Evil Rich Who Dared To Prosper.

So, to this end, Drdemocrat of DailyKos (tis true – [mental] health professionals could be of great service to the Democratic party) employs the deception-by-headline technique used by SO many in the mostly-unprofessional mainstream media about a WSJ poll recently published.

Procliams Drdemocrat: 75% of Americans want public option!

Well, flip me like a burger at McDonalds & close the debate! It’s freakin’ overwhelming support for the happy-botox-smiley public option insurance!

But wait, what’s this I find:

There was also support for the Democratic push to let people sign up for a public health-care plan that would compete with private companies, one of the toughest issues in the health-care debate. Three in four people said a public plan is extremely or quite important. But when told the arguments for and against the plan, a smaller portion, 47%, agreed with arguments in support of the plan, with 42% agreeing with the arguments against it.

Oh, well, uhhh… is there a difference between “want” and “said public plan is extremely or quite important?” Yeah, but what about the NOT BOLDED part afterward saying that “WHEN [THEY WERE] TOLD THE ARGUMENTS” 47% supported and 42% opposed.

I guess it’s not really 75% – how ’bout that. Of course nearly everyone would love free health insurance! But, what’s telling is that when people understand the consequences, they are A LOT less likely to “want” Universal Death Care. Maybe someone should tell ABCNews?

A continuing series covering snarky, condescending and inappropriate liberal response to the Tea Party Movement. Snark I | Snark III

First Greg Gutfeld at BigHollywood brilliantly takes on Anderson Cooper’s tasteless teabagging shtick: 

Now, if you`re too old or too high to get what`s going on, here`s the joke: The liberal-leaning media are goofing on the tea parties by invoking the term teabagging, a phrased used to describe an act of oral sex performed by a man – either on another man, woman, or in Alec Baldwin’s case – a cheeseburger.

And so you have Cooper`s joke – it`s just a shame he ripped off the shtick from David Shuster, who apparently has never met a joke he hasn`t beat to death like a hunter on a harp seal. On MSNBC, Shuster repeats testicle-based puns with a fervent relish not unlike an eight-year old boy who just can’t stop sniffing his fingers. And, this, coming from me. I`m mean – I always thought I was the king of obvious jokes, but I relinquish that crown – because the real obvious joke is Shuster.

4/17 Edit: Commenter BB brings up an excellent point. Gutfeld was being just as rude and crass as Cooper when he snarks at Alec Baldwin and he goes to far when he describes the 8 year old “who just can’t stop sniffing his fingers.” In retrospect, it was poorly chosen on my part – though comparing Cooper’s behavior to that of an 8 year old boy is quite apt.

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The callow behavior continues at DailyKos as Kos-hack Greg Dworkin spits up some unseemly Urban Dictionary definitions:

Teabagger n. A conservative activist who is so ignorant that they protest against tax cuts (that benefit them) by throwing tea into a river.

Teabagging: The mornic [sic] act of conservatives/Republicans sending used teabags to lawmakers because they think Obama is a Nazi.

Uhhh. How… unclever. The Chairman of Urban Dictionary’s Bipartisan Committee for the Prevention of Vulgar Behavior could not be reached for comment.

Dworkin continues by cluelessly claiming that the Tea Party had no buzz on Twitter because Twitscoop’s tag cloud didn’t show any tea party related words:

Dworkin's Twitscoop Screenshot

Riiight, because the fact that the #teaparty hashtag stayed at the top of Twitter’s “Trending Topics” nearly all day means NOTHING! It’s still #3 as of 10:35 AM EST 4/16/2009 – that means nothing too.

Perhaps Dworkin should have read Twitscoop’s explanation of their tag cloud:

Through an automated algorithm, twitscoop crawls hundreds of tweets every minute and extracts the words which are mentioned more often than usual. The result is displayed in a Tag Cloud, using the following rule: the hotter, the bigger(no joke here). 

Someone please tell Dworkin that words are not necessarily hashtags. Gee – ya think Twitscoop might be filtering out the hashtags??? Could it be that Twitscoop isn’t the best indicator of overall buzz? “Bullshit” is also listed as a trend in Dworkin’s TwitScoop screenshot – how appropriate.