Today's nutshell summary

Paul Krugman neatly summarizes the hate-fest that conservative pundits and bloggers have launched against a kid who stood up to defend the importance of SCHIP. He also makes clear how baseless their froth is, and really gets down to the heart of why all this is so troubling.

All in all, the Graeme Frost case is a perfect illustration of the modern right-wing political machine at work, and in particular its routine reliance on character assassination in place of honest debate. If service members oppose a Republican war, they’re “phony soldiers”; if Michael J. Fox opposes Bush policy on stem cells, he’s faking his Parkinson’s symptoms; if an injured 12-year-old child makes the case for a government health insurance program, he’s a fraud.
. . .
Even if you think adults have made bad choices — a baseless smear in the case of the Frosts, but put that on one side — only a truly vicious political movement would respond by punishing their injured children.

Uh, yeah, that seems obvious to those of us watching on the wings... Sigh.

(via Hullaballoo)