No Response to Responders

worstresponders

Anyone here see Jon Stewart Thursday night? An amazing half-hour. Stewart is angry about the G.O.P. filibustering the Senate end of the bill to provide medical relief for 9/11 Responders who took ill on the job. He devoted most of the show to the topic, including in-studio interviews with some 9/11 Responders.

This is an amazing issue. Despite what some of my correspondents insist, I do not believe "Republicans bad, Democrats good." I kinda believe "Republicans good for the wealthy, Democrats reasonably good for the wealthy but occasionally okay for others (though they're usually pretty lame)." Once in a while, either party can be shameless and Republicans have absolutely no defense for their actions here. None. Not even the slimiest Republican in the Senate (not to be confused with the slimiest Democrat) would appear on camera for the vote or to speak against the bill they were all going to oppose. They won't rise to explain it now; won't even make up some feeble rationale like, "Well, though we love and respect the 9/11 Responders, we felt this particular bill didn't serve their needs well." A few like John Ensign said they were for the bill but trapped by their pledge not to pass anything else until the tax bill was passed. Orrin Hatch actually told reporters he couldn't remember how he'd voted.

They aren't out explaining their position because there is no acceptable explanation. They just hope no one will notice and the Democrats won't start firing up outrage, asking "Why do Republicans in the Senate hate 9/11 Responders?" As it's turning out, Democrats aren't making an issue of it and neither is the supposedly Liberal Media. MSNBC has covered it. Shepard Smith did a segment with Chris Wallace on Fox and they both expressed some shock at the vote, though they pretty much made it sound like it was both Democrats and Republicans that had voted for the filibuster. There has been very little about it anywhere else except on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart.

Do we think that if Democrats had done anything that could possibly be interpreted as disrespectful to heroes of 9/11 that Republicans would shrug and not exploit it? Not long ago, someone wanted to build a multi-cultural center a few blocks from Ground Zero and darn near every Republican (and many a weasely Dem) was out wailing that a Muslim Mosque was being built right where the World Trade Center fell and that it was all some kind of Al Qaeda Victory Dance. Fox News practically went 24/7 on the subject, crying about the victims of that day being given the finger. And now, this.

I am not letting Democrats off the hook on this. They're either spectacularly inept or they too think there are more important matters than passing this bill. Or I suppose there's one other possibility, though it seems like a longshot to me. Maybe Harry Reid and Mitch McConnell made a deal: In exchange for something else — what, I can't imagine — Reid agreed to stop Democrats from screaming about the issue and pledged there'll be another vote on the bill before adjournment so Republicans can do the right thing and not have this used against them in the future. Something like that. That would make it righter but it wouldn't make it right. Some things should just be above partisan gamesmanship.

Jon Stewart was furious on his show and it carried over to his guest segment, which was with Mike Huckabee. Despite what had preceded him, Huckabee seemed ill-prepped to make any kind of defense of Senate Republicans. He started to say that the problem with this bill is that it hadn't been "separated out" (i.e., had other, disqualifying provisions attached) but Stewart corrected him and pointed out that was not true. I'm not one for mind-reading but it looked to me like Huckabee then realized there was no explanation anyone would buy…and that he wasn't getting out of that studio with a shred of dignity if he didn't immediately agree with Jon Stewart. So he did, fervently…and good for him.

I decided not to embed the whole show here because I just linked to a couple of Comedy Central videos and they seem to slow up the site a little. But as I'm writing this, I'm getting as angry as Mr. Stewart and I really want everyone to see this so here's a link to watch the entire show online. Just in case you didn't see it or didn't TiVo.

One sees a lot of anger on TV and hears it on talk radio but very little of it is genuine, especially when it comes from hosts, correspondents and other folks who have a day-to-day or week-to-week presence. Seems to me that when most of them get riled, it's all for show and they're more concerned about Good Television than Good Causes. But Jon Stewart is really mad about this. I don't think he's just interested in making Good Television…though he did.