Crazy is a Preexisting Condition

I love it! Crazy is a preexisting condition. And yes, these people have no shame.


From Paul Krugman

New York Times Blog
August 26, 2009, 4:26 pm — Updated: 4:26 pm -->
All out of shrill
Steven Pearlstein has an outraged column about
the lies, distortions and political scare tactics that Steele and other Republicans have used to poison the national debate over health reform.
And he concludes,
Have you no shame, sir? Have you no shame?
It’s all true. But I’m having a hard time writing columns like that. Why? Because while the raw dishonesty of the modern GOP appears to be a revelation to Pearlstein, Joe Klein, and others, I thought it was obvious at least as far back as the 2000 election campaign. (If I’d really been paying attention, it would have been obvious much earlier.)
Don’t get me wrong: I welcome Pearlstein and Klein to the reality-based community — better 9 years late than never. And in a way they have an advantage: having fought this thing for so long, I just can’t muster the same sense of shock. But I think it is important to realize that the current behavior over health care is nothing new — in fact, it’s been this way for a very long time.
As Rick Perlstein, our premier historian of the rise of modern movement conservatism, puts it, crazy is a pre-existing condition.