Dylan Ratigan Then and Now

You have to wonder.

We just learned that MSNBC talk host Dylan Ratigan lost his health insurance plan and now has to pay MUCH more for one that complies with Obamacare.

Why is this is extremely interesting?

In the summer of 2009 many of us attended an Obamacare town hall in Portsmouth NH… There were around 1,000 of ‘them’ across the street from about 2,000 of ‘us’.

Obama arrived in the back of a UHaul truck that backed up to the back door of the auditorium to allow him in unseen. There were also snipers on the rooftop.

Just after the town hall started, one of our founders was invited to speak with Dylan Ratigan via satellite hookup. The producer was a lovely lady who picked her up at her tea party station and drove her up the hill to a waiting canopy and TV truck, as it had been a torrential downpour just a few minutes before. And so the interview began.

Ratigan NEVER asked the tea partier what questions she would have asked inside had she been able to gain entrance. She explained how difficult it was to get a ticket and that she suspected there would be 90% supporters inside as result. As it turned out, there were… as with most Obama town halls, a stacked deck if you will. (Recall the child who was a plant?)

Ratigan queried her on the role of insurance companies and although she can’t remember most of the conversation (only one person she knows ever saw it live, and he’s unfortunately now deceased) she replied about how the insurance companies were actually in on it…helping to plan it.

A few days later this showed up on the internet…

So Much Shouting, So Little Laughter: A Maryland Health Care Town Hall
http://momocrats.typepad.com/momocrats/2009/08/so-much-shouting-so-little-laughter-a-maryland-health-care-town-hall.html

“Well, I won’t be going inside.” — Jane Aitken, New Hampshire Teabagger in response to MSNBC’s Dylan Ratigan’s opportunity to pose a question on health reform to President Obama

And that, ladies and gentlemen, sums it up nicely. Anti-health care reform folks are very interested in appearing on CNN, MSNBC, and Fox but totally, completely, and utterly disinterested in the facts.”

Sorry, but as explained above, it is nearly impossible to get tickets for these one-sided ‘town halls’. THAT is why she wasn’t going inside.

The “Momocrats” continued…

“As for the spin: Jane Aitken was given the opportunity to ask a question. There was a major network host — with Chuck Todd up next and listening — asking her [to] submit a question for the president. Rather [than] ask something about health reform, she demurred.

If Ms. Aitken was truly prohibited from entering, then Ratigan offered a golden change (sic) — why not jump at it? Why not ask about fiscal implications, the public option, or any of a hundred other topics?”

Once again the conversation was more about why people opposed the plan, not what questions they would have asked if they had been able to gain entrance.

Then we read this…

“Also, name-calling is in bad taste. If you wish to challenge a post on its merits, please do so. But future comments that resort to ad hominem attacks will be deleted (please see our comment policy).”

Well now isn’t that cute. This, coming from someone who called the interviewee a “TeaBagger” in the very first sentence…
Of course not a word on their blog about the complete and utter failure of the Obamacare promise. Not a word.

And so it goes.