These days the Republican party — adrift without any real leadership, bereft of any real ideas — will take its victories wherever it can find them. And increasingly, the only victories it’s finding are imaginary ones. That’s why Republicans are so delighted with their stimulus bill performance. Over the last week or so, the bill was good for several imaginary victories.
First, there was the anti-Christian provision that Pat Robertson‘s American Center for Law and Justice discovered in the stimulus bill on February 3.
The American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ), focusing on constitutional law, today called on the U.S. Senate to remove a discriminatory provision in the economic stimulus package that unfairly targets religious activity at universities and colleges that receive federal stimulus funds. The ACLJ discovered a little-known provision in the stimulus package that prohibits higher education facilities that accept federal stimulus funds from permitting religious groups and organizations from using those facilities.
“This is an unacceptable provision that clearly discriminates against religious organizations that have a legal right to use these facilities,” said Jay Sekulow, Chief Counsel of the ACLJ. “What’s disturbing is an Administration and Congress that moved swiftly to provide federal funds for a host of disturbing initiatives – including the promotion of abortion. And, now, there’s a move to keep religious organizations from utilizing facilities at colleges and universities that take federal stimulus funds. If this discriminatory provision is not removed from the package and is approved and signed into law, we’ll file a lawsuit in federal court challenging this provision.”
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Under this provision, student groups would be barred from using facilities for worship or even Bible study if the school accepts the federal stimulus funds.
Much fire and brimstone rained down from various evangelical organizations, including Jerry Falwell‘s Liberty Counsel and the Traditional Values Coalition.
Sen. Jim DeMint, who is one of the biggest asses in the Senate, jumped all over these allegations:
Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) told the Christian Broadcasting Network, “Democrats are looking for every opportunity to purge faith and prayer from the public square. This will empower the ACLU with ambiguous laws that create liability for schools, universities, and student organizations. This is an attack on people of faith and I don’t think Americans will stand for it.” His spokesman, Wesley Denton, went even further, saying, “[A]ny school that gets funds to upgrade a student center or building where Bible studies or religious meetings may be held will be slapped with a lawsuit. This bill declares a war on prayer at college campuses in this country.”
The Fox News website sold the story with the headline “Stimulus a War on Prayer?“.
All in all, a great propaganda victory for the religious right.
The truth of the matter? The ACLJ’s “little-known provision” was actually standard boilerplate language that has been used in Federal bills for years and years (with no ill effects on prayer, worship, Bible study or religious freedom):
Turns out that this sort of language is actually absolutely standard, as both the American Civil Liberties Union and Americans United for Separation of Church and State pointed out to Fox. Moreover, the Supreme Court saw absolutely no problem with it as far back as 1971. And the language doesn’t prohibit funds from going to religious schools; it just means they can’t spend it on any facilities used primarily for religious purposes. Nor would it mean that public schools would have to keep things like Bible studies out of any buildings renovated with stimulus funding. This isn’t some secret, either — it’s legal principle dating back decades.
Then, early this week, in an opinion piece on Bloomberg News, the rightly infamous Betsy McCaughey brewed up a storm about health care fascism. She raised an alarm about a proposal in the stimulus bill to create a “new bureaucracy”, the National Coordinator of Health Information Technology (NCHIT). This agency, in McCaughey’s fevered imagination, would “monitor treatments to make sure your doctor is doing what the federal government deems appropriate and cost effective.” The federal government would “‘guide’ your doctor’s decisions.”
Hot stuff! The bulls this was calculated to be a red rag to, dutifully reacted with apoplectic fulminations. Rush Limbaugh repeated McCaughey’s words on his radio show. The Drudge Report got into the act Monday night. Tuesday morning, Fox News and the Wall Street Journal editorial board climbed aboard.
All in all, a great propaganda victory for the conservative movement.
The National Coordinator of Health Information Technology, for instance, which McCaughey and the Fox News described as a “new bureaucracy,” already exists.
Established by President George W. Bush in 2004, the Office “provides counsel to the Secretary of HHS and Departmental leadership for the development and nationwide implementation” of “health information technology.”
Far from empowering the Office to “monitor doctors” or requiring private physicians to abide by treatment protocols, the new language tasks the National Coordinator with “providing appropriate information to help guide medical decisions.” This provision is intended move the country towards adopting money-saving health technology (like electronic medical records), reduce costly duplicate services and medical errors, and create jobs.
The provision was about making accurate information available to doctors in a timely manner by computerizing medical records, so that their medical decisions could be guided, not by NCHIT, but by accurate information. NCHIT would not in any way, shape or form be telling doctors what treatments to pursue.
And then just yesterday, we had the stirring saga of Nancy Pelosi‘s mouse.
Is there really $30 million in the new stimulus package devoted to saving the salt marsh mouse in Nancy Pelosi’s district?
That’s what some conservatives are now charging, and the claim seems to be gaining some traction with elected GOP officials and conservative media outlets, who are using it to argue that the bill is stuffed with Dem pork.
But there isn’t any such money in the bill. And Pelosi’s office is saying that the claim is a “total fabrication.”
How did this one get going? Yesterday a House Republican leadership staffer circulated a background email, which I obtained, charging that GOP staffers had been told by an unnamed Federal agency that if it got money from the stim package, it would spend “thirty million dollars for wetland restoration in the San Francisco Bay Area — including work to protect the Salt Marsh Harvest Mouse.”
The GOP staffer’s email didn’t say what agency it was. It didn’t say the money was actually in the package — just that an unnamed agency had said they would spend it on that if they got it.
But conservatives picked up the claim and began stating as fact that the mouse money was in the bill. On Fox News yesterday, Mike Huckabee blasted the bill for containing money for Pelosi’s mouse, and today GOP Rep Dan Lundgren hammered the alleged mouse money in the bill as “absurd.” Today’s Washington Times ran with a story called: “Pelosi’s mouse slated for $30M slice of cheese.”
But I just contacted the House GOP staffer who wrote the initial email laying out this talking point, and he conceded that the claim by conservative media that the mouse money is currently in the bill is a misstatement. “There is not specific language in the legislation for this project,” he said.
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“There are no federal wetland restoration projects in line to get funded in San Francisco,” Pelosi spkesperson Drew Hammill said. “Neither the Speaker nor her staff have had any involvement in this initiative. The idea that $30 million will be spent to save mice is a total fabrication.”