Michael Kinsley is wringing his hands today over the "gullible media." Imagine! A Priorities USA political ad blames Mitt Romney for the death of a laid off steel workers wife. Sadly, the wife of steel worker Joe Soptic died of cancer. Conservatives have labeled the ad a pack of lies and point out that the timeline doesn't support the charge. And the media are falling for it! The truth! How gullible can they be? Kinsley defends the honor of Obama and Priorities USA.
The ad is certainly tough and effective, but is it dishonest? It does not accuse Romney of murder. It does accuse him of indirect responsibility for a woman's death. It says that because the woman's husband lost his job and his health insurance when Bain Capital bought his company and closed his plant, the woman was slow to get medical care when she started feeling ill, and as a result was diagnosed with stage four cancer — terminal — when she finally sought help. She died shortly thereafter.
...
It is uncontested that lack of insurance is what killed this woman.
Hmm. New and important medical information: Lack of insurance causes cancer. It's bizarre logic that skips all of the incredible leaps you have to make to trace a cancer death back to Mitt Romney.
Mrs. Joseph Soptic died of cancer, 22 days after being diagnosed. Could her death been prevented if she had health insurance? Maybe. Except, Mrs. Soptic was diagnosed five years ater Joe lost his job at GST Steel and lost his health insurance in the process. Joe's had other jobs since then, as did his wife. GST Steel filed for bankrupcy in 2001, Soptic's wife died in 2006.
Can Mitt Romney be blamed for the closure of GST? Funny, but back in 2001 GST's union president blamed the government for the demise of GST Steel.
In 2001 it would become one of 31 steel companies that went bankrupt from 1993 to 2003. (Mr. Romney left Bain in 1999.) The steel crash was the economic drama du jour, with Congress railing about "dumping."
At the time, GST's union blamed the company's bankruptcy on the political class, for failing to hamstring imports. "We can't compete against the steel imports that are being sold under cost," said the president of GST's union in 2001. "Our pleas fell on deaf ears in the political arena." The Bush administration would ultimately slap on giant tariffs.
How did George Bush escape that one? He gets blamed for everything else, and clearly, he didn't slap the tariffs on quickly enough to save the GST Steel or Mrs. Soptic.
Ah, well. Progressives need a new villain, though, if they hope to hang onto the White House. Mitt Romney and Bain are made to order for died-in-the-wool liberals like Kinsley who aren't about to let facts stand in the way of their cause.
Facts like this: In 1993 owners of the Kansas City steel plant were going to shut it down if they couldn't sell it. Bain bought it and kept it afloat for another eight years. Bain Capital spent a $100 million on modernizations that made possible those eight more years of operation.
But nobody seems to be talking about the union's role in fate of GST Steel. What about that?
The Kansas City plant had two product lines—high-carbon rods and grinding media (used in mining)—that it felt could give it a competitive edge. But it needed investment, and Armco was tapped out. Bain nonetheless saw some potential and in 1993 joined other investors to acquire it for $80 million. Management renamed it GS Technologies (which would become part of a larger GS Industries) and poured an additional $100 million into modernization.
The strategy worked for a time. The market firmed up and GSI became a U.S. leader in steel rods. In 1994 it felt confident enough to distribute a dividend to investors. In both 1996 and 1997, GSI would realize $1 billion in revenue.
And then came the tsunami. The late 1990s saw a new outpouring of cheap steel from elsewhere around the globe. The Asian financial crisis walloped the mining industry, cutting demand for GST products. The price of GST's electricity and natural gas skyrocketed. The union dug in, refusing to make concessions. By April 1997, it was on strike, shooting bottle rockets at guards. Labor costs spiked, and by 1999 GSI was reporting $53 million in net losses.
Mitt Romney left Bain Capital in 1999 to take on the rescue of the 2002 Utah Olympics, two years before GST Steel closed up shop. When GST Steel filed for bankruptcy back in 2001, the union blamed the government for leaving the industry vulnerable to competition from cheaper imported steel. You may recall that was during the Bush administration. So it was Bush's fault once, but now they say it's Romney's.
Mitt Romney is the new threat to progressive fantasies of a social-democrat utopia. Though it's a stretch, it's one Kinsley is more than happy to make: Mitt Romney is to blame for the sad death of Mrs. Soptic. I don't believe even Kinsley believes it, though. For progressives the charges don't have to be true or even believable. Somebody will buy in, and that's enough. After all the important thing is holding onto power.
I wonder how it came to be that medical coverage insurance,
(NOT after-the-fact "social" Rights "discount") initally became a voluntary offering by employers, BEFORE it became MANDATED, first by semi-skilled collective contract,under threat of labor "unrest", THEN by gub'mint, extorted (from who you ask?) for their own of course, then under threat of revocation of permission of "others" to do business, for actual profit?
Aaaaaand, DESPITE The Constitution, NOW that it IS post-legislatively deemed a tax after all, the recent Obama Administration reinforced IRS has just "thought up" new "special" collection/waiver "laws".
Who'd a thunk it?
Posted by: CaptDMO | August 12, 2012 at 09:19 AM
Well said, Cap.
Posted by: Tom Bowler | August 12, 2012 at 07:52 PM