Scum of the earth

I haven't posted much about politics because, quite frankly, I've felt numb. When so much angers you, it's hard to get worked up about any one thing.

Well, now I'm angry, outraged, beyond words. Apparently some of the right wing persuasion have decided it's perfectly fine to go after a 12-year-old boy. This kid gave the Democratic response to Bush's veto of S-CHIP. Now S-CHIP is supposed to help cover -- with insurance, mind you -- children whose parents' income levels are too high to qualify for Medicaid.

Apparently it's perfectly justifiable to make up crap about such a kid's family. You know, ASS-U-ME things. Such as just because the family lives in a gentrifying neighborhood, that must mean they're living beyond their incomes, instead of buying before the neighborhood changed, or that because the kids go to private school, that they must have paid full tuition.

In fact, it's an irony overload because under any other circumstances, these same people would be pointing to this family as an example of respectable Republican virtues at work. You know, father is a small business owner, mother, up until recently, was the bookkeeper, etc, and stayed home with their four kids, they invested in capital that might eventually pay off.

But because they voiced support for something that leaned Democratic -- and even though lots of Republicans support the same thing and it was a bipartisan effort -- nope, they must be slimed and stalked.

I seem to recall that Michelle Malkin takes pride in being a purported journalist. Well, as someone who, as a reporter, had to screen people for the Santa's helper Christmas features, I can tell you, she doesn't know the first thing about bread and butter journalism.

We'd always first screen families for criminal history. If a parent had a checkered past but wasn't willing to 'fess up in print, we'd turn the family down. I thought that sucked in many cases because the parent had turned their lives around and it wasn't fair to the kids, but I wasn't the editor. Then we'd check their property records to make sure they weren't living beyond their means, check their DMV records, etc.
The operative phrase is property record. It's the easiest thing in the world to check. But apparently while Michelle had the time to visit the neighborhood in Baltimore where this family lived, she couldn't bother to make a detour to the courthouse to check the property records.

And then there's this whole Dems exploiting little kids charge. Uh, last I heard, it's something all politicians do. Bush had Noah McCollough and his social security campaign. There's the new spots on abstaining from sex. I've sat through way too much Congressional testimony that included young people telling their anecdotes for both sides of the aisle. Politicians live by anecdote. Heck, so do journalists.

OK, long windy rant over.