Friday, January 29, 2010

Mountains From Molehills Dep't. (UPDATED)

TPM blockquotes Pimp of The Wk. James O'Keefe as typing, in his defense,
I learned from a number of sources that many of Senator Landrieu's constituents were having trouble getting through to her office to tell her that they didn't want her taking millions of federal dollars in exchange for her vote on the healthcare bill. When asked about this, Senator Landrieu's explanation was that, "Our lines have been jammed for weeks." I decided to investigate why a representative of the people would be out of touch with her constituents for "weeks" because her phones were broken. In investigating this matter, we decided to visit Senator Landrieu's district office - the people's office - to ask the staff if their phones were working.
Uh, we imagine that a simple 'phone call, or three, or fifty, or (the four lads not being busy w/ actual jobs) a thousand, for a serious sample, might have made it obvious "if their 'phones were working." Which is an absurd question on the face of it. How does "our lines have been jammed for weeks" become "the 'phones are broken?" They really do create their own molehill-based reality.

UPDATE (2153 PST on 29 January 2010): We see that Weigel of The Wash. Independent has noticed (We did too, but are lazy enough that we figured "Just pick up the 'phone, dummy" was enough w/o going over this too.) the other clever thing that Mac Daddy O'Keefe pulled off:
I noted an error in the statement — the controversy is not over whether Landrieu is “taking millions of federal dollars,” but why the Senate added $300 million in Medicaid subsidies that stood to benefit Louisiana.

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