Jonah Goldberg's latest snark attack

For the umpity-ith time this week, just in case no one's been paying attention to his past screed, Jonah Goldberg, conservative whiner and syndicated columnist, criticized "Obamacare" (did Repubs call the similarly botched startup of Medicare Part D program "Bushcare"? And did they regard it as evidence of federal incompetence? Nope, and nope).

It's not even worth recounting Goldberg's tired complaints and thick-tongued attacks on health care reform, which he refers to as Sim Healthcare (like the "Sims" computer game; get it? It just LOOKS like health care reform, haw-haw). What's really instructive is how Goldberg finishes the column (which was running this week in the National Review online and numerous conservative newspaper op ed pages). Here's how that went (boldfacing is mine):

The most remarkable thing about Sim Healthcare is how it serves as an analogue to liberalism in the age of Obama generally. The president talks a wonderful game about inequality, shared responsibility, and the general superiority of liberal economic policies. It’s all uplifting, particularly for the extremely rich liberals who’ve gotten even richer under Obama but who feel like they are staying true to the cause by cutting checks to the Democrats. (A New York Times study found that between 2009 and 2011, income inequality grew four times faster than under George W. Bush.)

Catch that? The wealthiest One Percent among us are, if you believe Goldberg, most importantly composed not of lunatic conservatives like, say, the Koch brothers, but by...liberal Democrats! And Obamacare is really just part of a bigger plot to make themselves even richer!

Talk about psychological projection -- or maybe it's closer to pure propaganda and sheer disinformation. Take your pick.

Finishing up, Goldberg resorts to typical right-wing, red herring rhetoric. Income inequality in this country, he gasps, grew four times faster than under George W. Bush between 2009 and 2011! Yes, dude, it's true; when the US and world economies were gasping for air and many, many average workers were getting laid off and losing their life savings or their homes, the rich were indeed getting richer. Yet note the sleight of hand in Goldberg's posturing: That two-year period of crisis in our economy actually began earlier, in 2008 or even, by some measures, 2007, before Obama had any control over the economy but when Bush's decisions were coming home to roost. And wealth inequality was growing steadily for years before that. Remember "Chainsaw" Al Dunlap and how, in the '90s, he and other business executives like him laid waste to thousands of decent American jobs? Remember the crash of '87? This didn't suddenly all just start happening the day Obama was inaugurated.

And as for the backside of Goldberg's period of ill: Why did the economic collapse begin to ease off in 2011? Must we erroneously believe it was because Republicans controlled Congress and the White House? JUST THE OPPOSITE. Remember how it took a good year after Obama assumed office before we begin to see positive results from his (watered down, thanks to Republicans) stimulus measures in league with efforts by the Fed -- along with the massive, Bush administration TARP program that Republicans now like to blame on Obama. And let's not forget just how vigorously Republicans fought those recovery efforts at virtually every turn. Let the Detroit automakers go bankrupt! Not Obama.

Beyond their sheer inanity and pandering to the GOP base, those last couple of grafs in Goldberg's revised history are real poker "tells" suggesting deep fear among Republicans. Goldberg's commentary, like that increasingly produced by other right-wing pundits, suggest conservatives know full well how angry American voters are about the nation's economic troubles and whom they truly regard as responsible. So, of course, conservatives are busy trying to get voters to believe the problems are the fault of the guys who've been chosen to fix those problems. Like blaming firefighters for the fire they've arrived to put out.

It's laughable but it's encouraging, because it's emblematic of the last-gasp death-rattle of panicked conservatives. It might even work, a little bit. But as that famous Republican Abe Lincoln once said, you can't fool all of the people all of the time.

Goldberg's column:
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/365384/not-good-enough-obamacare-fix-jonah-goldberg