File this as our own pet peeve!

FRIDAY, JULY 7, 2017

But also, as a sign of the times: We don't know why people want to do things like this so badly.

We refer to this, the start of a new post by Kevin Drum:

DRUM (7/7/17): A couple of weeks ago, Kellyanne Conway denied that the Senate health care bill cut Medicaid. “These are not cuts to Medicaid,” she said. “This slows the rate for the future.”

This is the lamest, tiredest trope imaginable, and it’s flat-out false. In inflation-adjusted dollars—the only kind that honest people use—CBO estimates that the Senate bill cuts Medicaid spending by about 18 percent over the next decade. As a result, 15 million fewer people will receive Medicaid by 2026. That’s a cut by anyone’s definition.

Was Conway's statement "flat-out false?" Was she describing "a cut by anyone's definition?"

Plainly, she wasn't defining a cut by her own definition. And no, we'd have to say that her statement wasn't "flat-out false" in any obvious sense.

What was her statement? We'd rewrite Drum's critique this way:

DRUM REWRITTEN: This is the lamest, tiredest trope imaginable. Conway's statement can be defended as technically accurate. That said, her statement is also grossly misleading. It's a type of claim which has been used, for decades, to create confusion among the public—to create a false impression about an important topic.

In inflation-adjusted dollars, the CBO estimates that the Senate bill would cut Medicaid spending by about 18 percent over the next decade. As a result, 15 million fewer people would receive Medicaid by 2026.

Medicaid spending would rise from this year's level, by a relatively small amount. But due to ten years of inflation, Medicaid services would have to be sharply cut.

I have no idea why someone would rather say Conway's statement is "flat-out false" than make a more accurate statement which is perhaps more scathing.

Or maybe we do know why:

When we say the statement is flat-out false, it makes us feel good inside. Our body parts swell with blood and with pride.

We have expressed our partisan outrage in a bold, vibrant manner. We've said that we're the good people, unlike Them.

It's also likely that we have extended and clouded an utterly pointless debate. Along will come a range of hacks, not excluding Conway herself, who will spend the next several hours creating confusion out of our fiery statement.

People like Drum are easy meat for skillful dissemblers like Conway. His type has been eaten alive, on cable TV, for lo these many years.

(We first wrote about this particular type of confusion in 1995. The liberal world's inability to settle this question with respect to the Gingrich Medicare proposal was one of the year-long gong shows which led us to start this site.)

Conway's statement is grossly misleading. It has long been part of the dissembler's trade.

That said, when we say the statement is "flat-out false," we're preaching to the cheers from our own choir. As we do, we tend to extend a pointless debate which we tend to lose in the end.

Drum declared himself a convert in the wake of November's election. This was very impressive, of course, but his is the kind of childish statement the dissembler tends to pummel the convert with.

The convert is teaching us how to lose. But dear lord, it feels so good, so fine!

(Needless to say, Drum's headline refers to "lies." We tend to lose games that way too. It's a claim The Others adore.)

Drum was long our favorite blogger. With his conversion, we had to make an adjustment. In secular matters, we simply don't trust the religious type. They tend to lose games for our side, even games which should be easy to win.