MSNBC Krystal Ball’s closing essay on The Cycle today was epic. It was on point. It was a message that journalists should have made clear to the American citizenry long time ago. Unlike what MSNBC’s Chuck Todd said, that is the job of journalists. Journalists are responsible for telling the truth. Journalists must not allow their craft and the nation’s airwaves to be polluted with lies. Chuck Todd, David Gregory, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Fox News, and their ilk have damaged the process by allowing Americans to have been lied to and distracted by misinformation that in many, has metastasized as truth.
Krystal Ball hit the home run of truth one more time. This is a woman that never shies away from controversy. I actually met and spoke to her at the Netroots Nation 2011 convention where it was obvious both by her poise and the reaction she got to her speeches, that she was not just another talking head.
Ball hammered several points about the Republican kamikaze mission void of any redeemable values. She stated the truth that Conservatives’ alternative to Hillarycare’s liberal healthcare proposal was one by Wharton Business School professor Marl V. Pauly. That proposal was subsequently adopted by Conservative/Republican Think Tank Heritage Foundation. His proposal required individuals to purchase private insurance called an individual mandate. It was within a bill cosponsored by 22 GOP Senators. It is the same bill that was adopted by Mitt Romney (Romneycare) and it was adopted by President Obama who went against his initial support of Single Payer in order to appease Republicans.
Ball later excoriated Republicans. She said she does not understand any longer what it means to be a Conservative. Do they not believe in efficiency anymore? Do they no longer believe in the free market? She wonders why Republicans are sabotaging Obamacare as opposed to helping make it more efficient. She finds it surprising that while Republicans have normally spoken about states’ rights, they have abrogated their duty causing the Federal Government to set up exchanges in their states instead.
Ball hits back at the GOP ad that encourages young people to not take advantage of Obamacare and risk not getting necessary preventative care or healthcare if something bad were to afflict them. She says,
The GOP is saying to young people we would like to have the government stick an unnecessary trans-vaginal probe if you want an abortion but when it comes to health insurance don’t take any government help. Don’t go to the state or federal government operated insurance exchanges to buy private insurance. Stay away. Stay uninsured. Skip that pap smear. Skip that tetanus shot. Skip that pre-natal care. Skip that cholesterol test. And if you die an agonizing death and unnecessary death; one that could have been prevented by the health insurance reform that bears the President’s name, at least you know your death would have not been in vain. You would have died to serve the noble and patriotic cause, not of conservatism but of hurting this President.
She then says
They (Republicans) are willing to destroy themselves, their political future. That they would also encourage young people to go uninsured and risk financial catastrophe and death from preventable disease means that they aren’t just willing to sacrifice their own careers to hurt this President. They would sacrifice the lives of young people if it helped them score political points. That is not Conservative, it is a national disgrace. Republicans, Conservative of conscience, if there was ever a time to take back your party from the forces of anarchy, chaos and insanity, and self-destruction, now is that time.
Just maybe more folks with a wide platform will get the grit necessary to push back at the evil that the Right Wing is attempting to inflict on the working middle class. Maybe more people with a microphone, like Krystal Ball will call a spade a spade.