Responding to Olbermann and ThinkProgress
Last night, Keith Olbermann criticized me for linking to this post by John Wilson.
Olbermann seems to have been reacting less to the post itself, than to this comment at ThinkProgress. ThinkProgress complained: "Wilson never voiced a demand for resignation last year when former Rep. Nathan Deal (R-GA) missed over one hundred votes while campaigning for governor or when former Rep. Pete Hoekstra (R-MI) missed a crucial vote on unemployment extension."
The Olbermann broadcast generated a lot of heat. With Giffords' condition still so serious, her many admirers feel intensely sensitive to anything that seems to slight the wounded congresswoman. People are understandably very emotional about this issue.
Four points in reply.
1) Wilson's piece was serious and substantive. It did not belittle or demean. It dealt with very practical consequences of Gifford's disabling:
On Oct. 1, 2010, Arizona stopped funding seven kinds of transplant surgery for Medicaid recipients. This kind of rationing is not a first, but it is certainly a dire situation for those who have no other means of paying for much-needed care.
And that’s not the only problem. Arizona recently slashed mental health funding too. Sure, that may change now that a light is being shined on the supposed mental issues of Jared Loughner, Rep. Giffords shooter. But Arizona needs representation in Congress that can fight on its behalf -- just like every other state.
Legislators elsewhere share their condolences and pray for Giffords' speedy recovery as much as anyone else. That doesn’t mean they’ll be fighting for Arizona’s interests in the halls of Congress.
Building on this, Wilson made the important and under-appreciated point: the question of what to do about a disabled member of Congress is a very legally murky one. Arizona has a law on the books, but it's likely unenforceable. The problem of the disabled representative is a situation that legitimately calls for study, debate, and reform. Yes, it would be less poignant to discuss the question at another time. But it's inevitably at harrowing moments that the consequences of an unaddressed problem become urgently interesting to readers. That's why we were all discussing the hardening of aircraft cockpits after September 11, 2001, rather than before .
2) The shooting of a political representative inevitably has political repercussions and ramifications. Olbermann has not been shy about discussing those. (Neither have I.) In fact, I was on Olbermann's show on Tuesday to discuss one of those ramifications: the appropriate mode and temperature of future political debate in the United States. Sarah Palin tried in her unfortunate video apperance to rule that topic out of bounds. She was disregarded. Yet if the topic Olbermann and I discussed is within bounds, why is the very concrete and immediate problem for Arizonans flagged by John Wilson deemed undiscussable?
3) ThinkProgress wants to suggest that Wilson is some kind of hack or hypocrite for raising the issue at this time, rather than when a Republican congressman was missing votes. But that's just preposterous. If the point is valid, it's valid, and it does not become less valid because it could have been raised at some other of an infinite number of points in time.
4) Finally: FrumForum linked to the Wilson post, as did other sites, Including the Huffington Post. In other words, it was not content original to FrumForum. We link to things because we find them thought-provoking, newsworthy, or otherwise interesting. Oftentimes we link to contradictory points of view. Even in our own original content, we encourage debate: just this past week, we've presented contrasting points of view on the British National Health Service, and spilling over into next week we'll present contrasting points of view on whether the House of Representatives should be made bigger or smaller.
Which relates to the larger mission of this site. We are not here to present some new orthodoxy to substitute for the dead reactionary formulas of today's American political-media culture. We are here to get the blood of free thought flowing again. Inevitably that means we offer or link to ideas provisionally, subject to criticism and refinement. And that's why I personally find John S. WIlson an interesting blogger to read and consider. You'd think Keith Olbermann might see it that way too. After all, the last time Wilson appeared on the FrumForum site, he criticized MSNBC ... for suspending Keith Olbermann:
Today Keith Olbermann returns from the pointless suspension doled out by his employer, MSNBC. Olbermann had admitted in an interview that he contributed to Democratic candidates, an act deemed a violation of employee conduct. The suspension was riveting because Olbermann is MSNBC’s cash cow, raking in more than 1 million viewers per night. Which would lead one to think that MSNBC was making a principled stand, no?
Well, no. If you were deaf, dumb, and blind you still would have known that Olbermann was a Democrat who was supportive of their candidates (donations or no donations).