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Greg Sargent Continues Carrying Water for the Left

By: Erick Erickson (Diary)  |  July 28th, 2009 at 08:03 PM  | 

RESIZE: AAA

Greg Sargent, a leftist hack who now pretends to be an objective journalist, has never been able to help himself.

Those who follow his writings at the Plum Line, where he blogs, and on Twitter, can see for themselves that he is nothing but a leftist hack with a few posts thrown in for good measure to keep up appearances.

Take today. Sargent decided to go after me and other bloggers for pointing out that the Democrats’ healthcare legislation refers to the mentally disabled as “retarded.”

It does. And Sargent does not dispute that.

What Sargent says is that rightwing bloggers like me are grasping at straws because

The phrase in question — “intermediate-care facility for the mentally retarded” — is official, long-standing terminology that’s used in Federal regulations to define certain types of facilities.

In other words, Sargent, like the Democrats are perfectly happy to call people retarded. In legislation that totally reworks the entire American healthcare system, you’d think Democrats would insert a provision changing the terminology across the board.

But they did not. They could have. Since they didn’t, Sargent carries their water for them. Guess he won’t mind me pointing out his defense, like the legislation, is retarded. I mean, he’s okay with government calling people that.

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COMMENTS

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  • colddeadhands

    Erick this is my first post, and normally I love your work, but you crossed the line on this. By calling Mr. Sargent and the left extremists in charge of our government retarded, you insulted the mentally disabled far more then the authors of this ridiculous bill did. Those on the extreme left could only wish to live a single day with the honor, grace and fortitude that the mentally disabled community does every day of their lives. Other then that, keep up the great work and God bless!

  • http://www.erickerickson.org Erick Erickson

    You are, in effect, making my point. The guys on the left who get upset when people use the word “retarded” are perfectly fine using it themselves and when given the power to get rid of the word, fail to do so.

  • roscopico

    You might have gone one step further in your criticism.

    If I may be so bold, I posit the supposition that whomever was responsible for the bill in the first place is ret—ed as well.

    Perhaps I hope too much from the State-run media to hear even a whisper; but alas, nothing.

  • penguin2

    retarded, he said “his defense, like the legislation.”

    And you are absolutely right about the “honor, grace and fortitude” of the developmentally disabled. It is these individuals among others that are the most vulnerable in our society and need to be protected from the ramifications of the Obama Healthcare bill.

  • Jack_Savage

    “The phrase in question ? ?intermediate-care facility for the mentally retarded? ? is official, long-standing terminology that?s used in Federal regulations to define certain types of facilities.”

    Fair enough.

    On the side, I sometimes do what are called “bank draw inspections”. Basically it involves taking pictures of a single or multi-family home or commercial building and reporting exactly what line items have been completed so the appropriate amount of money can be released. Sometimes this is done for HUD homes. OK so far.

    A few weeks ago, we were informed that pictures of buildings that also include residents of the neighborhoods where HUD inspections were involved were strictly forbidden. Futhermore, when the report is written, the term “graffiti” is also strictly forbidden. If absolutely necessary to include in the report, the term that will be used going forward is “urban art”. I am not kidding.

    Point being, this was a stern and proactive decree by the federal government to “correct” a term they deemed a problem. Don’t give me this “they’ve always been called ‘retarded’ so there’s nothing we can do” crap.

  • azaeroprof

    this bill calls for the Sec. of HHS to define “new measures of gender”, but they’ll hide behind the term “retarded” because “we’ve always said it that way.”

    Just one more of a myriad of reasons this legislation is a dangerous joke.

  • blooch

    Government health care regresses technologically and hygienically, so we might as well keep the old terminology–and bring back some classics–to complete the retro ambience.

  • DONTREADONME

    as retarded become offensive to the mentally disabled? Come on, the 80′s wasn’t that long ago.

    BTW, when you give a word(s) the power to offend you give the utterer of that word power. Think about that for a second.

  • Aaron Gardner
  • mom2oneson

    and I’m not a ped but retarded or retardation isn’t a “bad” word, it’s used all the time in medicine.
    Developmental disability is a broad term, mental retardation is a DD but not everone with a DD has MR. MR is way more specific than cognitive impairment or intellectual disability too IMHO.

  • http://www.bearcreekledger.com toni100

    On my personal blog I had posted a story “Yes Indeed, words DO matter – HR 3200 Mentally Retarded Reference” at Bear Creek Ledger and received this comment:

    Mike Kruger (IP: 143.231.249.138 , b249-138.house.gov)
    E-mail : xxxx.xxxxx@mail.house.gov
    URI : http://edlabor.house.gov
    The term ?intermediate-care facility for the mentally retarded? or ICF/MR is a facility defined by the Social Security Act and federal regulation. Check out HHS?s website devoted to the topic: http://www.cms.hhs.gov/CertificationandComplianc/09_ICFMRs.asp….there’s more but you get the idea.

    I replied to Mr. Kruger “So Mike, is this your job for the US House as an Online Outreach Specialist, or have you had a promo since the Messiah took office? “