Here's the relevant bit from a July 2006 edition of the "Chris Matthews Show":
And there's another aspect to this as well. That photo-op, this week with all of those babies made me want to throw up. It is so transparently political and cynical. I mean, you know, I think that the real thing that the Republican campaign Karl Rove is flying into is whether the level of his cynicism about all of these issues, and these sorts of photo-ops is gonna become an issue in this campaign itself. Are people gonna say, ‘How dumb do they think we are?'
But now that Republicans and conservative bloggers were asking the same question vis-a-vis the Democrats parading Graeme Frost and his family as a poster family for SCHIP, it's a different story to Klein and the gang at Time's Swampland blog.:
Paul Krugman has a terrific column--reinforcing Karen's Swamp outrage the past few days--about the Republican propaganda campaign to discredit a child. Krugman's larger point is that this is business as usual for the latter-day Republican Party and also for much of the mainstream media. (Did CNN really buy the GOP disinformation? If so, shame on them.) My hope is that the stakes are high enough, and public interest will be intense enough in 2008 to undermine the effectiveness of slime campaigns. In the past--Willie Horton, impeachment, Bush's anti-McCain slime in 2000, the Swift Boats in 2004--I've tried to respond rapidly to this sort of stuff. I've got to say, though, the Graeme Frost campaign is about the lowest and skuzziest I've seen so far.
Klein's colleague, Karen Tumulty, went as far as to describe conservative blogs raising questions about the Frost family as "The Swift-Boating of Graeme Frost."
Other liberal outlets, such as MSNBC's Keith Olbermann are still running downfield with Graeme Frost, hoping to score a touchdown with a veto override.
Darleen Chick of Protein Wisdom noticed that young Frost will be a guest on Olbermann's October 15 program, where the virulent conservative-hater will take the opportunity once again to bash the vast right wing blogger conspiracy for being sub-human. Liberals in the media remain committed to sharpening the old Gingrich Era-saw about conservatives and Republicans being heartless child-haters.
Chick notes, correctly, that conservative critique has not fallen on young Graeme, but rather his parents and political exploiters (like Olbermann) on the Left who (should) know better:
Seems Halsey isn’t above hiding behind his son again and letting mush-brain Keith Olbermann pimp the hapless child on TV because you know, as the Left Truthiness states, Graeme has been “swiftboated”.
As those who actually live in the real, adult world know, “swiftboat” is really about the inconvenient airing of uncomfortable facts.
This last is pretty snort-worthy:
Watch this 12 year old boy call out the Neo-cons tomorrow night on Countdown.
Where are the adults in the Left? Ones that find using a child as human shield less than honorable?
