Saturday, November 07, 2009

Ex-GOP Congressman Tom Tancredo Storms Off MSNBC Set.



Tom Tancredo is a complete tosser. Here, he storms out of a TV studio after Markos Moulitsas calls him out on his chickenhawk past.

Here's Jed Lewison:
A few minutes ago on The Ed Show, Tom Tancredo tried to make the case against government health care by claiming that the Veterans Administration is unpopular with U.S. military veterans. The only problem for him was that he was up against Markos...who is one of those veterans, unlike Tancredo, a pro-Vietnam War chickenhawk who got a 1-Y deferment.

When Markos pointed out that Tancredo was (a) wrong about the Veterans Administration and (b) not qualified to speak for veterans, Tancredo exploded in anger, demanding an apology. Markos did not oblige, and Tancredo stormed off the set.

Quit while you are behind, Tom.

And Moulitsas is bang on the money when he explains why the Republicans are terrified of universal health care. Their entire philosophy for the past thirty years has been built on the notion that government programmes do not work. Should health care in the US end up as popular as the British NHS, then that Republican argument would be exposed as the hollow edifice which it is. And that's one of the main reasons why they oppose it. Because they know it will work.

2 comments:

Cecilio Morales said...

"Will work" can mean any number of things. Given a diminishing population of young and healthy people and an exploding population of aging and progressively less healthy people, I doubt any industrialized nation will have a working health system by 2050.

But that's beside the point. The reason Republicans (and lots of Democrats ... don't forget dem) don't want reform is that the insurance industry doesn't want reform and is paying them loads of money to oppose it.

It's that simple. We've got the best Congress money can buy.

Kel said...

I agree Cecilieaux that the insurance companies have a lot to do with this. And that both sides take money from them.

But anything has got to be better than the system you have at present where profits are being made by insurance companies who add nothing to the equation other than their own greed.