“Brazenly loud, disrespectful and inaccurate, it’s ‘The Ed Schultz Show’.” (That’s not the tagline, but still.)
The MSNBC host went ballistic on a retired 23-year military veteran during his radio program Wednesday, scolding him over Republicans’ legislative support of veterans. The vet and caller, ‘Russell’, observed that though 171,000 veterans lost their health care plan Oct. 1, Republicans passed a bill in June that helped address the issue — a bill that the Senate ignored. He said that the Senate also failed to take up a House-passed measure funding the Department of Veterans Affairs, which was passed the same month.
“First of all, you have your facts wrong,” Schultz said.
But did he?
Indeed, the Department of Defense previously had announced a plan to reduce coverage for TRICARE Prime effective Oct. 1, affecting more than 170,000 retirees and their family members. However, the House passed a defense authorization bill June 14 that included a one-time waiver for eligible beneficiaries to retain coverage. To date, the Senate has failed to take up this legislation.
Additionally, the House did, in fact, approve a Fiscal Year 2014 funding bill for Military Construction and Veterans Affairs on June 4. It was a tense vote, passing with a bipartisan majority of 421-4 oh never mind. The Senate received the bill, reported it out of the Senate Appropriations Committee on June 27, and it never received further action before the full Senate chamber.
Russell’s right, and Schultz is wrong for saying he isn’t. Chalk it up as a ‘K’ in the box score.
Additionally, notice that none of this has to do with the government shutdown. That wouldn’t stop Schultz from trying to make an issue of it.
“I’m not gonna freakin’ argue with you Russell! You’re full of crap! OK? You’re full of it!” he exclaimed. “The government shutdown hurt the veterans — is that wrong or right?” he continued, in what a lawyer or a dead Roman perhaps would call a non sequitur.
“It hasn’t hurt us yet,” the caller replied.
“Oh, yet!” (Oh, the sanctimony!) “OK, hasn’t hurt you yet. Who shut the government down?”
“You didn’t say anything about the fact that …” Russell began, before being interrupted.
“No! I am going to break your idiot argument down piece by piece.”
A couple of things. One, Russell really hadn’t made an argument, per se — he had stated a few facts that Schultz incorrectly retorted were untrue. Two, you’re not allowed to describe someone else as an ‘idiot’ after you do that.
After a few minutes of the obligatory shouting, Schultz berated Russell for calling him ‘sir’ — “Don’t ‘sir’ me! I’m not a sir to you the way you talk to me!” — and admitted that he needed to cool it on account of some friendly advice.
“My wife is telling me to calm down.”
Check out the audio, courtesy of NewsBusters.
