Sean Hannity attempts to paint the decision by the Democrats to bypass the formal conference committee for the health care bill as a corrupt back room deal where the Democrats will be buying votes and as something that has never happened before, even though as Susie noted, this happened all the time when the Republicans were running the show under George Bush. Rick Santorum admits as much, but tries to qualify it and says they only did it on appropriations bills.

While I actually do agree with Hannity that I would like to see the meeting held by the Democrats opened up for the C-SPAN cameras as well, pretending like the GOP didn't jam through any bill they wanted passed when they were running things is a sorry case of history revisionism. Claiming that the Democrats cutting the Republicans out of the conference committee who have been blocking and stalling everything they can is in and of itself somehow corrupt is completely ridiculous.

Of course Hannity and his guests Rick Santorum and Tucker Carlson didn't bother to point out that the reason the Democrats are doing this is because the Republicans have no plan to ever work with the Democrats no matter what is in the bill. Judd Gregg already laid out what the Republicans plan was with this legislation--maximum obstruction.

Judd Gregg Lays Out Maximally Obstructive GOP Game Plan On Health Care:

If Sen. Judd Gregg (R-NH) gets his way, the dilatory tactics that have marked the early days of the Senate health care debate will grow more and more severe.

"We, the minority party, must use the tools we have under Senate rules to insist on a full, complete and fully informed debate on the health care legislation - as well as all legislation - coming before the Senate," Gregg wrote in a letter to Republican colleagues yesterday. "As laid out in the attached document, we have certain rights before measures are considered on the floor as well as certain rights during the actual consideration of measures. Every Republican senator should be familiar with the scope of these rights, which serve to protect our ability to speak on behalf of the millions of Americans who depend on us to be their voice during this historic debate."

Gregg says Republicans should be prepared to filibuster every motion, "with the exception of Conference Reports and Budget Resolutions, most such motions are fully debatable and 60 votes for cloture is needed to cut off extended debate."

[...]

Most of the steps Gregg suggests his colleagues take don't serve any substantive purpose at all, but simply cause the debate proceedings to grind to a halt. As if this debate was proceeding at lightning speed. And this was nearly President Obama's Commerce Secretary! Democrats, for their part, are saying they'll happily take the debate through Christmas if this sort of behavior persists.

Of course pointing any of that out to his viewers would be asking too much of Hannity since he's more interested in Murdoch's goal of destroying the Democratic Party since there are actually some decent progressive members left there. I don't like what's in the bill either but watching this sort of rank dishonesty about the process and how the Republicans have acted when they were in charge is pretty sickening.

I'm in the camp of Jon Stewart with what watching too much of Sean Hannity's propoganda hour on ClusterFox will do to your health. I just hope Hannity and Rush and Beck and the rest of them are proud of themselves for turning the political debate in this country into a sewer of hatred and misinformation. There is always room to disagree on facts and anyone's opinion of those facts. When you can't start the debate from an honest place and care more about lining your pocket than telling anyone the truth... well if you believe in hell, I would imagine there's a special place there waiting for you. I'm not quite sure how any of these three get up in the morning and look in the mirror every day.