Current Events — HabitableZone

Current Events » in reply to The Left's destruction of "Joe the Plumber" begins.

I'm still waiting for an answer, TB (Frosts vs Joe)
dtb — (archived)

Was it or was it not OK for the Right to do similar checking and piling on for Graeme Frost's family on the SCHIP issue last October?

You'll recall the stories included not only questioning whether they should have been eligible for SCHIP, including not only people pulling property records and other personal information seaches, photographing their house, questioning neighbors, etc., but all manner of criticism of choices they had made and even accusations that the mother had probably been drunk at the time of the car accident that injured their children (based on nothing other than "why else would she have crashed?"). It was a HUGE issue in the right blogosphere, particularly for Michelle Malkin and Free Republic, but really all over the place.

If it was OK, please explain why checking out the Frost's story was justified and why checking out Joe's is not. Before saying that it's because they inserted themselves into the debate and Joe did not, note that Joe certainly did not have to do interviews with Katie Couric and other national reporters if he didn't want to continue to be in the national spotlight. I'd also be surprised that McCain is using Joe in a campaign ad (as he is now) if he didn't have Joe's permission.

And if checking up on anecdotes is not justified, then what would be wrong with me criticizing McCain and the GOP at an event for sending my daughter to die horribly in Iraq, despite the fact that I don't have kids, on the basis that I might someday and if I did I'd feel really bad and think it likely that the GOP would send them to war?

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