Comedian Jon Stewart is the new Edward R. Murrow. Why? He shamed Republicans into supporting a bill to pay the health care bills of 9/11 first responders. It is written in the New York Times, therefore it must be so. The cognoscenti nod their heads in agreement, and another page in the history of the Obama administration is inked.
Of course, it is all nonsense.
Even the New York Times, it seems, is getting its news from The Daily Show these days. But getting one's facts from a fake news show, as actual journalists used to point out, is risky business.
The story of Jon Stewart saving the 9/11 responders bill from heartless Republicans has already become accepted folklore, although like most folklore, it just isn't true.
The folklore goes like this: Senate Republicans didn't want to pay for health care for 9/11 responders. They used the excuse of wanting to extend the Bush tax rates first to prevent the bill from passing. Then Jon Stewart ranted about their obstructionism on his show, urging them to "just @#%&ing pass it!" Shamed, they caved and passed the bill.
In fact, the bill was flawed and Republicans had serious objections to it from the start. It did more than simply pay for 9/11-related health expenses for New York City first responders who were on the scene that horrible day. According to the Los Angeles Times, only half of the people covered by the original bill were first responders. The other half were civilians -- city residents, school children, and volunteers who came to help clean up in the aftermath of the attacks. But there is no telling who those people actually are. It is believed that about 10,000 people came to the city to help. They were from all over the country. Republicans were rightly concerned that the bill could become a blank check to virtually anyone, anywhere who claimed to have gotten sick as a result of 9/11.
Senate Republicans who opposed swift passage of the bill in the final days of the lame duck Congress were not opposed to the concept. They were opposed to the size and scope of the bill and to the process that would've fast-tracked the bill without allowing amendments. What is more, they said they were opposed to exactly that, not because they wanted to pass the Bush tax rates first.
No comments:
Post a Comment