McClatchy Newspapers spotlight right-wing attacks on 11-year-old boy

And it's exactly what reporters ought to be doing, yet so few have: spotlight the extreme efforts by right-wing commentators to poison the debate about health care reform.

Because let's face it, it's news when leading political commentators gang up on an 11-year-old boy after he comes forward to tell his sad tale of watching his mother die without health care. It's news when a political movement decides the best way to 'debate' health care reform is to mock and belittle the people who have suffered the most. 

Also, to McClatchy's credit, the article simply lays out the facts and let readers decide for themselves the merits of millionaire commentators like Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh setting their sights on a poor 11-year-old boy whose mother died of a serious illness. 

From McClatchy: 

Conservative talk show hosts and columnists are taking issue with an 11-year-old Seattle boy’s account of his mother’s death as a “sob story” exploited by the White House and congressional Democrats like a “kiddie shield” to defend their health care legislation.

Marcelas Owens, whose mother got sick, lost her job, lost her health insurance and died, said Thursday he’s taking the swipes from Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck and Michelle Malkin in stride.

“My mother always taught me they can have their own opinion but that doesn’t mean they are right,” Owens said in an interview.

Owens’ grandmother, Gina, who watched her daughter die, isn’t quite so generous. “These are adults, and he is an 11-year-old boy who lost his mother,” Gina Owens said. “They should be ashamed.”