Muriel Kane had the story at RawStory Friday night:
Former Republican Congressman Tom Tancredo attempted to argue against Democratic plans for health care reform on Friday by claiming veterans were dissatisfied with their government-run health care. He was confronted by blogger Markos Moutlitsas, who unlike Tancredo is a veteran himself, and reacted by stalking off the set of MSNBC’s The Ed Show where both men were guests.
Tancredo had begun by pointing to what he sees as problems with the Medicare system when host David Schuster interrupted him to ask, “So how about the Veterans Administration? The Veterans Administration is a single-payer system. … That’s also a threat to our freedom?”
“Every veterans groups I ever went and talked to complained about the Veterans Administration and the way it was a bureaucratically-run program that didn’t serve their needs,” Tancredo told Schuster. “They would much rather have vouchers that would allow them to go out and buy their insurance in a private marketplace.”
Moulitsas, founder of The Daily Kos, began laughing as Tancredo was speaking. “Tom, I’m a veteran,” he told Tancredo. “I did not get a deferment because I was too depressed to fight in a war that I supported in Vietnam.”
This was a slightly garbled reference to Tancredo’s having obtained 1-Y status in 1970, after his student deferments ran out, on the grounds that he had been “diagnosed with depression when he was 16 or 17 and received medication for five years for panic attacks and bouts of anxiety and depression.” Tancredo was 24 at the time.
Moulitsas and Tancredo then began speaking over one another, but Tancredo finally managed to say, “You’re not going to try to insult me that way and then pretend like we’re just going on and talking about that. You either apologize or I’m off.”
“I’m not pretending anything,” Moulitsas replied. “I told you straight up.” At that point, Tancredo ripped off his earpiece and microphone and left the set.
“This is a threat to Republicans,” Markos commented after Tancredo was gone. “They’ve built an entire ideology predicated on telling people that government does not work. They are terrified of government programs that work, because then people will realize that government’s not the enemy.”
Tancredo, who left Congress last winter after a failed bid for the Republican presidential nomination, is best known for his opposition to immigration, but he has also been identified with conservative causes in general.
Prior to his confrontation with Moutlitsas, Tancredo had agreed with House Minority Leader John Boehner’s claims that health care reform is a “very scary threat” and had insisted to Schuster that it was perfectly appropriate for health reform protesters to use an image of concentration camp victims at Dachau because when it comes to protests, “It’s all ugly.”
This video is from MSNBC’s The Ed Show, November 6, 2009.
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where it’s due…
So when Kos nailed him, he was ready and eager to bolt. I couldn’t believe they put those two together, but am I glad they did. Credit where credit due: Way to go Kos!
I saw this last night, as you can imagine there were several diaries up about it at GOS, with the clip.
I had a mixed reaction to this. I read some bloggie blog first before viewing it, and somehow I missed that the guy is actually a frikkin CONGRESSMAN but still.
I know he’s an idiot but my first impression was that markos’ whack at him was uncalled for and out of line. Very nah nah nuh boo boo and childish. I mean, it was not a direct comment on the whole content of the debate and I felt like it was a “low blow”. But then… for Tancredo to just unplug and walk off, jeez, what a douche.
At the same time, yay for pointing out the hypocrisy of the guy.
I dunno. Its one of the reasons I usually just avoid all that crap.
proves the point a bit better imo.
the guy shuster(?) did a good job i thought.
first time in a long long time i’ve seen real questions asked.
Markos, the crashing no gates leftwing gatekeeper who forbids all discussion of the global 911 truth movement “clashes” with a right wing neo-con about a not on the US media blacklist topic.
This is a highly ungreen complete waste of electrons serving only the purpose of dumbing down the sheeple.
I am also getting a real powerful impression from that picture of Markos and first impression is a totally dead soul with all microchips and stuff. Really kinda creepy.
I’ve got my own problem with Markos… namely, that he pushed for more instead of better… giving us a majority that cannot even pass the Democratic agenda.
But, he did what you have to do — punch them right in the mouth and make them storm off in a hissy.
That boy wasn’t raised poor, or raised middle class either. There’s a different way people from the upper class use their hands and move — he’s got it. People who’re pampered in the sense that they don’t work with their hands, and likely never have.
(We use different muscles to do manual labor, larger muscles, and their development essentially prevents extremely fine movements.)
Hmm, wikipedia:
Private elementary and high school? Check.
Grandparents immigrants? Check. (Huh? he sure hated today’s immigrants…)
Dodged service in Vietnam? Check.
Told docs he’d been depressed, and used that to dodge service? Check.
Loves education? Check….Oh wait!
Amend that: Loves education for himself, children, grandchildren? Check, but hold the sauce for everyone else.
Culturally literate? You betcha:
I can’t go on…
it was a low blow by Kos and I wouldn’t have done it. It is typical of the kind of “debate” that goes on in the MSM (can we say “circus”). I don’t like politics by insult and over-simplification. Who knows what Tancredo’s circumstances were? This kind of discourse leads to only allowing people who have played perfectly by the rules so that there is no stain on their “record” to comment on the MSM. Are all of us disqualified if we have been depressed? Panic attacks are no joke nor is depression.
Yes, Tancredo and all the right wing fascists of the day supported Vietnam — but so did most people. His draft status does not disqualify him from talking about veteran’s health-care.
We get distracted by such simplistic encounters from the real issues we need to address.