{"id":1524,"date":"2004-04-05T13:04:18","date_gmt":"2004-04-05T18:04:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/1524.html"},"modified":"2004-04-05T13:04:18","modified_gmt":"2004-04-05T18:04:18","slug":"comparing-the-medicare-and-iraq-scandals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/comparing-the-medicare-and-iraq-scandals\/","title":{"rendered":"Comparing the Medicare and Iraq scandals"},"content":{"rendered":"

The controversy surrounding the administration’s handling of its Medicare plan has received many negative comparisons, but Salon’s Eric Boehlert<\/a> wrote a terrific item noting the striking similarities between Bush’s dishonest selling of the Medicare scheme and the dishonest selling of the war in Iraq. This is definitely worth reading (if you’re not a Salon subscriber you can always get a day pass).<\/p>\n

Last year as the Bush White House tackled overhauling Medicare and invading Iraq, it used strikingly similar political methods for both. Today the two would-be victories have morphed into mirror-like crises and scandals. Both are subjects of widening investigations. <\/p>\n

If both the Medicare bill and the war in Iraq had gone as the White House planned — seniors cheering the new drug prescription plan as Iraqis were supposed to welcome U.S. troops into Baghdad like it was Paris 1944 — Bush’s reelection campaign would be a formality. <\/p>\n

“Medicare and Iraq tell us all we need to know about the White House,” says Rep. Robert Wexler, D-Fla. “They operate behind a series of misrepresentations, followed by coverups.” <\/p>\n

Bush’s Medicare program and the Iraq war both fit a striking pattern: The real motives were clouded in secrecy and false claims; the true costs distorted; administration officials pressured not to reveal true information; and the White House has relied on taxpayer-funded propaganda operations to try to prop up both.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

One is a domestic mess burdened by scandal; the other is a foreign policy disaster shrouded in deception. Boehlert paints a pretty devastating picture noting the parallels between the two.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The controversy surrounding the administration’s handling of its Medicare plan has received many negative comparisons, but Salon’s Eric Boehlert wrote a terrific item noting the striking similarities between Bush’s dishonest selling of the Medicare scheme and the dishonest selling of the war in Iraq. This is definitely worth reading (if you’re not a Salon subscriber […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1524","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1524","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1524"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1524\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1524"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1524"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1524"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}