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Let me summarize an exchange which occurred in the comment section of a post here.

A poster (I won’t mention his name. Let’s just call him Tommy) made the claim that a draft health bill revealed that…

On page 16 of the discussion draft of the Bill that was presented last week, http://waysandmeans.house.gov/media/pdf/111/hrdraft.pdf , states that people do not have a right to keep their own health care plan. If they leave their current plan, or if their current plan changes, they must move to the government plan.

A couple of people responded by saying that page 16 of the draft bill said no such thing and one of them (me) wrote…

How can there be hope for compromise and rational discussion when even an obviously intelligent person like yourself gets duped into seeing demons between the lines. If the devil is not there, then simply state it is.

Tommy came back with…

I’m not a conservative, but their response to that would be “Why do you ignore the devil between the lines?”.

Beautiful.  In that one line, Tommy points out the number one tactic used by Republicans in opposing everything that the Obama administration has done or plans to do in regards to health reform, foreign policy and fiscal matters.  Its simple and works like this: attack at all costs.  Period.  Attack what Obama says and if you can’t find anything strong enough to attack in the president’s actual words, then read in between the lines and make stuff up.

Give intent to the president’s every statement because it’s not what he says that matters; it’s what conservatives and Republicans interpret as his intention! And hey, who knows better what the president intends than Newt Gingrich and Michael Steele and Rush Limbaugh and, of course, those fair and balanced folk over at Fox.  Call Obama a socialist who is out to destroy the country.  Call him a Marxist who is out to destroy health care.  Call him a neophyte who is out to degrade the power of the U.S.  And while you’re at it, tell people he wants to take away your guns.  Tell people he’s a baby killer.

Call the president anything but just make sure it sounds real mean and ugly.

Lie. Lie. Lie. Do as Rush did and lie and claim that page 16 spells out the end of private health care.  We all know the majority of listeners won’t bother checking out page 16.  They’ll just accept it as gospel because Rush told them so.  As for the Tommys of the nation who will take the time to check, ah…well that’s where the “devil between the lines” comes into play.  They’ll read an innocuous piece of text and see in it the nefarious intent of Obama.  The seed was planted and the Tommys are seeing what they want to see, what they need to see.  They’re interpreting not as it is but in the way they were told to interpret.

And don’t you dare tell them otherwise.  It’s not about truth or logic though they’ll argue until they’re blue in the face that truth is on their side.  But it’s never about truth with them.  It’s about defending a political ideology at any and all costs and when required, to point out the  devil’s handiwork in between each and every line.

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