Post by Maryland Bear on Jul 15, 2009 10:33:10 GMT -5
That seems to be their response to everything not republican, even stuff that would benefit them, if a democrat thought, enacted, or made it work, republicans would refuse it and mock.
Case in point: 911 emergency services have trouble with people calling them for non-emergencies. Minor traffic accidents, car alarms that won't shut off, etc. I even heard once that the Baltimore 911 line got a call from someone wanting to know the score of an Orioles game. Obviously, this is a problem if you're having a massive coronary and someone is tying up the 911 operator to report a fender-bender on a side street.
Bill Clinton decided to use the Presidential "bully pulpit" to encourage the creation of "311" systems to handle non-emergencies. He didn't talk about a nationwide program or even Federal funding; he just basically said "this is a good idea; cities should set that up."
Now, there's no real reason to object to that, right? Not even Rush Limbaugh, who was pretty much the only nationally syndicated right wing talker then, could come up with a reason to attack it, so all he could do was mock it.
I'll confess, what he came up with was pretty clever, albeit obnoxious. He set up a second line to call his show, but the callers only could use it if what they wanted to talk about wasn't that big a deal. Big laughs, I suppose, if you're a dittohead.
The point being conservatives mocked Clinton even for something utterly unobjectionable -- even beneficial.
