Debbie Wasserman Schultz – the best DNC chair the RNC ever had – turned in a particularly disastrous performance on CNN Monday. Many eyebrows were raised as CNN host Wolf Blitzer calmly, methodically refused to let DWS lie about the effects of Ryan’s proposal on existing beneficiaries.
Ryan explicitly stated that seniors 55 and over would not be affected at all. Wasserman Schultz was utterly unable to deal with this, launching into a bizarre rant that Blitzer had to keep interrupting with little infusions of the truth. It doesn’t help any that DWS’ speaking style is roughly comparable to the sound of Freddy Krueger scraping his knife blades across a chalkboard, particularly when she starts freaking out at the end:
http://www.youtube.com/v/r5NJF5Fcvmg?version=3&hl=en_US
What are we to make of this weird encounter between the Democratic National Committee chairwoman, and a mainstream media journalist who stubbornly refused to let her lie about Paul Ryan’s plan? Not to take anything away from Blitzer’s commendable insistence on getting basic facts right, but this could be part of a signal from the media to Democrats that they’re going to have to step up their game, if they want to go head-to-head with Paul Ryan.
As for Wasserman Schultz, it’s painfully clear that she suffers from the arrogance of thinking that she didn’t have to study Ryan’s plan before attacking it, and she appears stunned when Blitzer won’t let her get away with lazy Medi-Scare boilerplate. It’s possible she’s never actually read Ryan’s proposals at all, because she didn’t think she had to. She thought it would only be necessary to chant “cut Medicare” repeatedly.
A word of free advice for Democrats: assume that Paul Ryan has read all of your plans, and knows them better than you do. Allow me to remind you what the result will look like, if you don’t heed my warning:
