December 18, 2009
Matthew Spieler
This has got to be one of the most unprofessional, egomaniacal rants by a news anchor I’ve ever seen. He berates Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz in an increasingly patronizing tone, telling the lawmaker that he’s going to give her a “brief education.”
Dylan Ratigan is pissed about the state of health care reform. We get it. He’s particularly angry about the lack of consumer choice. Agreed. But there’s no excuse for this.
Matthew Spieler
Matthew Spieler is a former policy analyst for Congressional Quarterly, where he covered health care, education, labor, and veterans’ affairs. A graduate of The George Washington University, he has also worked as a reporter for CQ covering ...
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Branwyn Lancourt says:
she deserved it big time.
Russ Wellen says:
Had never seen Ratigan before. Never heard of him before he got this MSNBC gig. He's like Rachel Maddow, but more in your face. Almost breathtaking to see that on national TV.
Bo Diddly says:
Excellent work by Dylan rattigan. Congress deserves this and plenty more of it. And I mean PLENTY.
sam says:
debbie deliberately avoided answering the question as to why consumers cannot purchase health insurance like we purchase car insurance. why is it that people can only purchase health insurance plans from the health insurance company that is assigned to their state? If i live in new york and an insurance company in chicago has a better price why can't i purchase it?
That's what dylan ratigan was expressing and what debbie was ignoring. she's paid off.
John says:
Actually there is every excuse for it, most importantly the fact that Congress is railroading down a bill that satisfies no-one and does nothing to rectify the underlying private insurance monopoly.
Instead Debbie Schultz has the gall to come out and rattle off talking points?
I applaud Dylan Ratigan and hope we see a lot more.
Bubba says:
'Bout freakin' time some MSM lackey starts asking for an answer to a question instead of just glossing over it and asking the next one. This is what journalism needs, more hosts that demand answers. Grow some balls Matthews.
Dee Dunn says:
Debbie Wasserman Schultz knows nothing. Robert Lowry will be taking her place for Florida's US Congressional District 20 in 2010. LowryforCongress (dotcom) is the web site. Be gone, Debbie, be gone!
CarolRose says:
He's such an a..hole...This is why CNBC fired him...If he got in my face like that, I would have maced him. Insecure men only get in the face of women, children and animals because they are on the lower rungs of the ladder. It's a power trip and it's abusive. I'm an abuse survivor and I know this type of man. Total a..hole; it has nothing to do with her; he's not listening because he gets off showing what a "big man he thinks he is." God help any woman or child that may live under any roof with him.
Michael says:
Matthew Spieler apparently likes it when elected officials just continue to parrot talking points instead of ACTUALLY ANSWERING THE QUESTION. It makes him feel better and sleep better at night that Wasserman-Schultz just talks about how "historic" this bill is. Then when having a question she doesn't like to answer, she answers the question she wants to answer in her head and goes on a talking point monologue and is incensed that she is stopped. Matthew, you know darn well that her answers were a joke which is unusual, as Wasserman-Schultz usually answers questions on interviews. She knows deep down that this new mandate with NO breaking up of the monopoly of the insurance industry is BS except now people will be fined. It's a "we did something" BS, except this time people know this is BS and Dylan called her out on it. Just watch the video each time, she deflects the question so why in God's name did she come on the show? The show is not just for her to read premade talking points. It's to answer the question by the interviewer. Naturally after the first 2 times, he got frustrated as she STILL wasn't answering and chickened out with, "I'm not a stock analyst", yet as a legislator she doesn't mind tinkering with a business market to give them 30 million more customers against their will who will STILL be unable to afford it bc rates will now go up to 3 times higher than what they are now. Yet, you're pissed off about Wasserman-Schultz's feelings.
Cygnus says:
Do you people, or this Dylan Ratigan, have any idea what a monopoly is? How can you possibly list four(out of many)companies in the same industry and then talk about there being a monopoly?
tom says:
D. Rat Again... what a total (-@-) !!!!!!!!!!!!! He is now and always has been a total (-#-)....
Joe says:
Cygnus:
He is talking about statewide monopolies. Almost every state has 1 large provider of healthcare (around 80-90% in some states) The statewide monopolies are held by the companies he mentions.
Props to Mr. Ratigan for doing this. I used to like Congresswoman Schultz, until I saw this video.
Joe says:
This is the standard we should hold all government officials to. Our country would be much better for it.
CarolRose: Trust me, he would have done that to a man or a woman, I've seen him do it to men before.
RH SF says:
I never heard of this website til yesterday, and only via following a link from a TYT youtube channel vide. So I have no idea if this is a centrist site, not-about-politics-in-particular site, or site for columnists-in-training.
Those appalled by Ratigan's persistence and style should of course be consistent and ask for same sanctions by applied toward O'Donnell who, is his case, nailed an obfuscating Republican to the wall for lying.
I could care less whatever motivated CNBC to fire Ratigan. Who cares. Finaly someone who understands financial markets taking it to sellout Dems as well.
If she's have just fessed up and said something like "I am extremely disappointed by this bill, I agree with you that the insurance industry clobbered us by massive targeted lobbying of individual Senators and Congressmen to get their votes, and I intend to work harder in the upcoming year to introduce better legislation to address these maor conflicts"... then Ratigan would have gotten an authentic answer.
The first words out of Schultz mouth were about "the shift from blah blah care to blah-blah care" which Ratigan smelled immediately as a talking point, and it was. So he pressed immediately, not even giving her space to contiunue her marketing headline. Good. He pressed her about her response to the correlation between the rapid rise in insuarnce company stock values, and the final results of that bill. She acts dumb and tries to pawn off some pathetic high-school argunment that if he wanted a financial expert, he shouldn't have asked her onot the show.
He was very clear in responsding to her request "may I speak?"... i,e, give me a straight answer this time, no prepared statement... And yet she in fact utters the exact same phrase, exact -- signalling that she was indeed only capable of, or only chose to, use obfuscation feel good language to avoid the question's intent -- that they sold out, so why not admit it.
He cut her off more abruptly this time because the moment he heard the same prepared line, he had a point to make, and he made it. I could give a shit about how Schultz felt. She's often been a good Dem with some level of progressive conviction... but here she was just going to do a monkey sales job.
Ratigan did exactly what O'Donnell did to the Republican parrot -- to cheers from Dems "about time someone didn't accept BS as an answer".
Al you crybabies have shown your colors as 100% certifibale standard issue, TOP-DOWN, Clinton-era DLC centrists, who are just fine with selling out real progressive initiatives.
Ratigan is sequentially, show after show, demystifying the great wall street and corporatist charade, and unveiling how flimsy the response of elected offcials is about this process hapening in broad daylight.
More of this, not less.
mickey says:
BRAVO Rattigan! It is entirely unacceptable for our elected officials to be so woefully IGNORANT of the impact of their legislation. Finally, a journalist who has the ability and perseverance to shine a big bright light on it and not let go!! Wasserman Schultz and her peers who choose (or -- more likely -- are intellectually predisposed to) this head-in-the-sand approach to their jobs, justified by some fluff-ball, esoteric, factually-unsupported, emotional vaugery ought to be put through this every day until they change or resign.
Spieler, grow up and quit whining. This has nothing to do with ego. It has everything to do with accountability.
Joe Hargrove says:
She is an imbecile; he understands economics. She is brainless and followed an ideologue traditional America-hater, free-market hater president's directive. He (Dylan), for some unimaginable reason, is disgusted with her position (which is the position , again, of a left-wing moron zealot who is uneducable on economics but worse, doesn't care - thinks only in terms of ideology). He did a superb job of illuminating the stupidity of anyone - simple-minded voter, senator or rep, who supports the abortive, unconstitutional garbage bill. Wait until November,liberal garbage...
Joe Hargrove says:
He said, "Oligopoly/Monopoly" if you have ears. I have a Masters in economics, and his definition is correct. A group of companies in any given industry who set prices together represent a monoopoly - doesn't have to be *1* company*