Sidebar: Christmas in July

I did not read the full SCOTUS Opinion issued June 28 on “Obamacare”; I read most of the dissent to see what the four conservative justices Scalia, Thomas, Alito and Kennedy had to say. Most of it was about the narrow interpretation that the consequence for not getting health insurance was a penalty (in lieu of a tax), and in their view the congress could not compel commerce (to purchase insurance) through this penalty. But I came across a most interesting analogy that provides a fantastic example of how my conservative counterpart operates, both in his critiques of PolitiFact rulings as well as his commenting style on the PolitiFact Facebook page.

 The “Obamacare dissenters” described why the entire healthcare law needed to be struck down: it was because it had lost its heart with their invalidation of the individual mandate and the Medicaid expansion. They compared it to a Christmas tree: the tree itself was the mandate and the Medicaid expansion, while all the other requirements laid down by the massive ACA bill were merely ornaments on the tree, and that without the tree, the ornaments were now useless.

This perfectly describes the manner in which he argues: he cleverly ignores the tree, the foundation, while arguing incessantly about one of the ornaments. You take that ornament off, yet the tree is still there, but White thinks because he’s successfully (in his mind) reasoned that since the ornament should come off, the tree should be ignored.

He argues that PolitiFact deserves a False because Obama did not describe the wage gap for women correctly, but there’s still a wage gap. He argues that PolitiFact misses specifics of a fantasy Paul Ryan budget proposal but ignores that, as I explained, that budget might as well be made of green cheese. He argues that PolitiFact failed to recognize that Obama’s spending gets a false lift from “negative spending” (later shown to only have been recorded once) though the spending was the result of factors for the most part out of Obama’s control. He argues about felons and non-citizens voting in Florida, when it’s really about those who should be able to vote getting kicked off the voter roll (as one Republican congressperson from Pennsylvania recently proudly admitted).

So, to that end, I have decided to graphically present this (deliberate) error in thinking each time it occurs: with a “White” Christmas ornament. What better way to show that removing that White ornament leaves the tree still standing; the tree White wants you to pretend not to see.