According to today’s Times, the First Responders in New York may have Jon Stewart to thank if the bill to provide medical care for them makes it through our dysfunctional Senate. Why? Because Stewart shone a light on a particularly nasty piece of Republican obstructionism, and he put a human face on it to boot. As he pointed out, the Republicans voted to deprive the first responders of medical care, after wrapping themselves in 9/11 for almost 10 years, not to mention that they constantly tried to appropriate the heroism of those New Yorkers for themselves.
Which raises the question. Why did Jon Stewart have to do this? How hard would it have been for Obama to get in front of the cameras with the same New Yorkers that Stewart had on his show, and call the Republicans out? Part of what comes with the presidency is the bully pulpit, but Obama seems to have a great deal of difficulty getting into that pulpit, never mind preaching effectively. Sure he can still give vapid campaign speeches, but when it comes to actually pushing an issue, he’s AWOL.
If the thinking was that they had more important priorities than these hapless New Yorkers, it is still the case that they missed an opportunity. You don’t stop them from obstructing by sweet reason. You make them look bad, one filibuster at a time, and where best to start but with the sacred memory of the day that changed everything (except, of course, all the things it really didn’t change). Stewart has apparently done, in about 12 minutes of airtime, what the Democrats in the White House and Senate couldn’t bother to do: call the Republicans out on what must be one of the most cynical political maneuvers of all time. (This, of course, assumes that the White House might want to stop the obstructionism, something we now have reason to doubt.)
The media, by the way, despite Stewart’s prodding, is not, even now, exactly covering itself in glory on this story. Witness Time magazine, which repeats without comment this Republican BS:
The bill passed the House but has been stalled in the Senate due to GOP concerns that it would, in essence, create a new — albeit relatively tiny — entitlement.
As Stewart reported, not a single Republican stepped forward to justify the filibuster, leaving us to conclude, correctly, that as with all the other bills they filibustered, this was all about extorting a tax cut for the rich. It is journalistic malpractice of the highest order for Time to report this after the fact cover story without even a suggestion that it might be a tad disingenuous.
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