December 16, 2005
Partisan Point-Scoring
Sometimes, the people on my side of the aisle are downright embarassing.
Atrios and Dave Sirota are piling onto Trent Lott, big-time tort-reform advocate, for hypocrisy. Lott, the Wall Street Journal reports [subscription required] has just filed suit against the State Farm Fire & Casualty Co. to force the insurance company to pay for Lott's house in Pascagoula, Mississippi, which was destroyed by Hurricane Katrina.
Sirota's post includes a bunch of Lott quotes about how suing to solve problems is something Democrats do.
I am no fan of Trent Lott. He's a racist hypocrite. At the same time, Katrina was completely blind to the state of the souls of the people she killed or whose houses she ruined. When I was in Mississippi, I did not hesitate to assist even the racist hypocrites who stood in dire need of assistance.
Sirota omits the real story: That State Farm and other insurance companies are seeking to evade their responsiblities to policy-holders by claiming that much of the damage caused by Hurricane Katrina was flood damage, not hurricane damage, and is therefore not covered by the hurricane riders to homeowners insurance.
Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood has filed suit against several insurers with policies in Mississippi, including State Farm, to force them to honor their policies for damages resulting from the hurricane.
What's more, insurance adjusters on the scene have been advising policy-holders to sue. I have been told by homeowners in Biloxi that their adjuster said something to the effect of, "It's just a position taken by the insurance company. The legal issues simply have not been resolved. The courts are going to decide this."
Many of the affected homeowners, including many I've spoken with myself, are people of limited financial means. No small number of them are Democrats.
"Justice for All" means exactly that: justice for everyone, whether or not they are on my side of the Great Divide in our political landscape. I would love to see Trent Lott brought to justice for his political misdeeds – and I also want to see him get his due in the hurricane recovery. The story here isn't that Trent Lott is a hypocrite; we've known that for years. The story is that State Farm, in its arrogance, is trying to screw Republican Senator Trent Lott along with everyone else.
Posted by abostick at December 16, 2005 12:45 PMWhat's "embarassing" about Sirota's remarks, or Atrios's one-line link to them?
Neither of them said that Lott shouldn't sue. The obvious point of the "then and now" Lott quotes that Sirota compiled is that Lott is a hypocrite for working to make it harder for people to seek legal relief against insurance companies and then availing himself of the privilege when push came to shove.
You're entirely admirable for having gone and actually worked your butt off helping Mississippi disaster victims. But in this post you're getting worked up over rhetorical sins that haven't been committed. Neither Sirota nor Atrios said anyone doesn't deserve help. Yeah, they were engaged in "point-scoring" -- correct point-scoring, about the way powerful politicians like Lott, when their personal circumstances require it, are perfectly willing to avail themselves of exactly the kind of relief they work to abolish for everybody else.
Where you're off the rails is when you say "the real story" is that "State Farm and other insurance companies are seeking to evade their responsibilities to policy-holders". No, that's not "the real story." It's a real story. The shameless hypocrisy of the powerful is another real story. They're all real stories; we don't have to set them against each other. And while it's good to criticize one's allies when they're wrong, it looks from here like your zeal to tell what you consider "the real story" has moved you to flat-out misrepresent what two people said.
Posted by: Patrick Nielsen Hayden at December 17, 2005 05:00 AM
