Bill Frist is a Scoundrel

I have an RSS feed to Crooks and Liars. No surprise there. We don’t have cable, and even if we did I wouldn’t have the time or the patience to watch CNN, MSNBC, the networks and especially Fox. C&L is a great way to keep up with the shenanigans of the Conservative Idiots.

Bill Frist is a textbook example of a scoundrel. I have no trouble believing he was a bully on the playground as a kid. A couple of examples: Bill Frist the medical student lied to the personnel of animal rescue shelters in order to obtain cats unethically for experimentation, outside of the normal sanctioned experiements that are required of medical students. Then there was the notorious “diagnosis” of Terry Schiavio via a video-tape.

As I said, textbook scoundrel.

[As an aside, has anyone else noticed that back in the Clinton days and before, the Republicans constantly whined, warned and complained that if we weren't careful the Democrats were the ones who were going to intrude into our personal lives and threaten our precious rights? What would they have said if the Clinton administration had done even a third of what these criminals have been doing for the last 5 years?]

Yesterday, as I was going through the C&L updates, I watched a clip of Frist on Fox speaking to Chris Wallace:

HOST: …Are gay marriage and flag burning the most important issues the Senate can be addressing in June of 2006?

FRIST:…When you look at that flag and you tell me that right now people in this country are saying it’s okay to desecrate that flag and to burn it and to not pay respect to it, is that important to our values as a people when we’ve got 130,000 people fighting for our freedom and liberty today? That is important. It may not be important here in Washington where people say, well, it’s political posturing and all, but it’s important to the heart and soul of the American people. … Why marriage today? Marriage is for our society that union between a man and a woman, is the cornerstone of our society. It is under attack today.

Why don’t these reporters ask questions like this:

Host: Wait a minute. As a medical doctor and the Senate Majority leader, surely you are aware of the statistics of how many Americans, men women and children are unable to receive even minimal health care due to skyrocketing costs and lack of insurance? How many documented cases of flag-burning have there been in the last 5 years, and how many people suffered as a result of those flag-burnings? Are you actually going to sit there and tell the 40 million plus Americans who lack proper health-care that an amendment to the constitution banning flag-burning is somehow more important to them than providing a solution to the health-care crisis?

Frist: [paraphrased for clarity] I’m a hypocritical self-servative who has not even the slightest interest in helping anyone who's net-worth is less than $5,000,000. Never forget that fact.

Host: Next question senator. Explain to those Americans who have to decide between eating and paying for $3 per gallon gasoline, between heating their homes in the winter and paying for exepenisve medication, explain to them how the union of two people of the same gender is more of on “attack on marriage” and a threat to family values than the policies of the Bush administration that have benefited only those who can afford yachts and mansions and basically left the lower and middle classes worse off than they were during the Clinton years?

Frist: At the risk of repeating myself…

I’m just so sick of these selfish bastards talking about non-issues. There is no “attack on marriage.” There is no “war on terror.” There is, however a concerted effort to shift more wealth and power away from the lower and middle classes and into the coffers of the richest Americans.