Scott Brown camp: No snub intended

Politico ^ | April 12, 2010 | ANDY BARR

[rightwingintelligentsia]

Sen. Scott Brown (R-Mass.) was never planning to attend a tea party rally featuring Sarah Palin this week in Boston, his staff told POLITICO, and did not intend his absence to come off as a snub.

Brown spokeswoman Gail Gitcho told POLITICO that coming off of a two week legislative recess, Brown had always planned to be in Washington this week.

Brown drew notice Monday after the Boston Herald reported that Brown was skipping the rally.

In a story headlined “Scott Brown snubs Sarah Palin, bags Tea Party rally,” Herald reporter Edward Mason wrote that “Brown’s decision to skip the first big rally in Boston by the group whose members are credited with helping him win election has some experts saying he’s tossed the Tea Party overboard, as he prepares for re-election in 2012.”

The story was fodder for bloggers eager to highlight any GOP slight directed at Palin or a rift between a GOP lawmaker and the tea party movement.

[DBrow]

Please use polite language.

I am very uninformed, having only the video of his statements. Can you fill in the chopped out portions of his speech that indicate that he does not think that everybody should have some sort of health care through some basic plan?

“”I voted for health care here.... we’re past campaign mode and it’s important for everyone to get some form of healthcare. So to offer a basic plan for everyone I think is important.. there are some very good things in the national health care plan that is being proposed””

[Deb]

I'll use any language I like and just retyping the same chopped up statement shows nothing except you're a malcontent, flying monkey who uses any opportunity to lie about Republicans.

Your stupid quote means nothing. Its a string of innocuous statements separated by ....

I won't even give you a "nice try". You're pathetic.

[DBrow]

Thank you for your kind reply.

I note from your response that you are unable to expand on, or refute, Senator Brown’s comment regarding the need for national health care. I think that if you could fill in that elipsis, all would be clear, but for some reason you cannot.

Here is another quote from the Washington post:

“We’re past campaign mode: I think it’s important for everyone to get some form of health care,” Brown told a news conference Wednesday morning. “So to offer a basic plan for everybody I think is important. It’s just a question of whether we’re going to raise taxes, we’re going to cut a half at trillion from Medicare, we’re going to affect veterans’ care. I think we can do it better.”

It says basically the same thing, except they filled the pause with a colon! Most newspapers, and the video of the senator, all seem to tell the same lie. What is this world coming to when only you know the truth, and all around you are liars? yet you could clarify the whole issue by filling in that gap, the gap in the video, that would change the meaning of his words.

[DBrow]

From Capitalism Magazine, a longer transcript of the CNN video of the January presser:

We in Massachusetts already have 98% of our people covered under health insurance. We know what we need to do to fix it. But to have the one-size-fits-all plan that’s being pushed nationally doesn’t work. What I have suggested and what I’m hoping to suggest is to let the states tell the federal government, “Hey, this is what we’d like to do, can we work with you in a team effort? Maybe you can incentivize us to do something better, so we can learn, or model it like we have it.” We’ve done it here. We have experience with it. I voted for health insurance here, so obviously I care very deeply about it. . . . Now that we’re past the campaign mode, I think it’s important for everyone to get some form of health care, so to offer a basic plan for everyone is important. It’s just a question of whether we’re going to raise taxes, cut $500 billion from Medicare, and affect veterans care. I think we can do it better. To just be the 41st Senator and bring it back to the drawing board is important. There are some very good things in the national plan that’s being proposed. But in a parochial manner, we have to think about Massachusetts first, not Washington or the party first. In other words, what about us? . . . I think I can certainly offer guidance as to what we’ve done here and how we could maybe do it better there.