Why is MSNBC taking cues from Betsy McCaughey?
September 09, 2009 3:23 pm ET by Jamison Foser
Looks like somebody has been reading Betsy McCaughey's awful column. MSNBC's Contessa Brewer adopts McCaughey's the-bill-is-too-long nonsense, complete with a highly misleading prop:
That stack of paper sure is intimidating. But maybe Brewer should have let her viewers know that it's twice as high as it would be if legislation was printed the way pages are typically printed? After all, your twelve-year-old's Social Studies report can look intimidatingly long, too, if you print out one letter per page.
Brewer's stunt with the printout of the bill was deeply dishonest -- the kind of demagoguery that is annoying but expected from partisans trying to kill a bill, but not from journalists.
And Brewer's next step was just as bad. Since when does journalism consist of portraying complex issues as even more complex than they are, rather than explaining them?
Maybe people would understand health care a little better if MSNBC explained it to them, rather than exaggerating how incomprehensible it is.
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Without them the Truth will Die like a Withering Tree.
I don't know much about Betsy McCaughey except that she is a Serial Liar.
We should all stick to the Facts before the truth Expires.
Speak truth to power.
Mr. News
Because MSNBC is a hot bed of liberalism, or so I'm told.
</sarc>
"Hey, if you're expecting cogent analysis of the health care proposals, you came to the wrong place. Did you see how long it is? There are big words in there."
This doesn't get mentioned nearly as often as it should. Legislation is printed double-space with large fonts and huge margins. I think it averages about 24 lines per page. But this isn't important when you're using the sheer size of an imposing stack of paper to make your point.
I happen to have a requirements document here on my desk that is 1500 pages and a fraction of that size.
Maybe MSNBC needs a lesson on how to SAVE TREES!
Or I'll just write the bill right now. "Medicare now applies to everyone, not just those over 65. It will be paid for by raising taxes on the rich until it's paid for."