via c&l, ezra throws down to michelle:
“it’s militant leftist bloggers,” writes malkin, “who wouldn’t know a good-faith argument if it bit them in the lip.” let’s have a good faith argument. i will debate michelle malkin anytime, anywhere, in any forum (save hotair tv, which she controls), on the particulars of s-chip. we can set the debate at a think tank, on bloggingheads, over im. hell, we can set up the podiums in the shrubbery outside my house, since that seems to be the sort of venue she naturally seeks out. and then if malkin wants an argument, she can have one. we’ll talk s-chip and nothing but — nothing of the frosts, or congress, or her blog…
so c’mon michelle: let’s debate health care. prove to the world that you really want “a good-faith argument.” we can talk crowd-out, and cross-subsidization, and whether lower-middle class entrepreneurs are able to procure health care on the individual market. if this is a policy argument you care so deeply about as to travel to the frost family’s house to see if they really deserved s-chip benefits, surely you’ll want to set up a web cam and talk through the issue.
we’ve written michelle asking for her response. we’ll see if we get one.
meanwhile, the baltimore sun is one multi-millionaire media organ that doesn’t take too kindly to the hardly-ever-right wing tactics to intimidate the frosts:
but while the frosts were helping a bipartisan majority in congress sell a plan to expand the program, they were not prepared for comments such as this one, posted over the weekend on the conservative web site redstate:
“if federal funds were required [they] could die for all i care. let the parents get second jobs, let their state foot the bill or let them seek help from private charities. … i would hire a team of pis and find out exactly how much their parents made and where they spent every nickel. then i’d do everything possible to destroy their lives with that info.”
the onslaught began over the weekend, a week after 12-year-old graeme frost delivered the democrats’ weekly radio address with a plea to bush to sign the bill. a contributor to the conservative web site free republic noted graeme’s enrollment in the private park school and the sale of a smaller rowhouse on the frosts’ block for $485,000 this year and questioned whether the family should be taking advantage of the state program.
that post was picked up by the national review online and other web sites. by monday, rush limbaugh was discussing the family’s earnings and assets on the air, and the blogger michelle malkin was writing about her visit to halsey frost’s east baltimore warehouse and her drive past the family’s butchers hill rowhouse. liberal bloggers, meanwhile, were complaining that the frosts were being “swift-boated.”
the hardly-ever-right wing sites have mentioned that at first glance, the frosts look well-off. the problem is, the right doesn’t go beyond glancing:
[deputy secretary for health care financing john g.] folkemer said a family’s assets are not considered in determining eligibility. halsey frost purchased the family home for $55,000 in 1990, according to city records, and refinanced in 2005, he says, to make improvements to accommodate the return of Graeme and gemma from the hospital. the 1936 brick rowhouse, on a side street near Patterson Park, has an assessed value of $263,140.
halsey frost purchased a 1920 warehouse in east baltimore for $160,000 in 1999, according to city records. it is assessed at $160,500. frost says he is still paying off the mortgages on both properties.
the four frost children depend on financial aid to attend private school, the frosts say. in addition, they say, gemma receives money from the city for special education made necessary by her injuries.
halsey and bonnie frost say they still have no health insurance. bonnie frost said she priced coverage recently at $1,200 a month.
we’d love to see ezra and michelle debate. it would be more interesting than any other recent debates, that’s for sure.
addendum: we like colin mcenroe’s phrase:
no child left unsmeared.
